It has recently been demonstrated that one can accurately derive galaxy morphology from particular primary and secondary isophotal shape estimates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging catalog. This was accomplished by applying Machine Learning techniques to the Galaxy Zoo morphology catalog. Using the broad bandpass photometry of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in combination with with precise knowledge of galaxy morphology should help in estimating more accurate photometric redshifts for galaxies. Using the Galaxy Zoo separation for spirals and ellipticals in combination with Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry we attempt to calculate photometric redshifts. In the best case we find that the root mean square error for Luminous Red Galaxies classified as ellipticals is as low as 0.0118. Given these promising results we believe better photometric redshift estimates for all galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ($\sim$350 million) will be feasible if researchers can also leverage their derived morphologies via Machine Learning. These initial results look to be promising for those interested in estimating Weak-Lensing, Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation, and other fields dependent upon accurate photometric redshifts.
Hybrid morphology radio sources are a rare type of radio galaxy that display different Fanaroff-Riley classes on opposite sides of their nuclei. To enhance the statistical analysis of hybrid morphology radio sources, we embarked on a large-scale search of these sources within the international citizen science project, Radio Galaxy Zoo (RGZ). Here, we present 25 new candidate hybrid morphology radio galaxies. Our selected candidates are moderate power radio galaxies (L_median = 4.7x10^{24} W/(Hz sr) at redshifts 0.14<z<1.0. Hosts of nine candidates have spectroscopic observations, of which six …
我们生活在一个充满星系的宇宙中,星系的大小和形状令人惊叹。天文学家在这一领域工作的最大挑战之一是了解所有这些类型在膨胀的宇宙背景下如何相互关联。现代天文学调查(如斯隆数字巡天)通过提供大量的星系来研究,彻底改变了天文学的这一领域。这些数据库的庞大规模使得传统的星系类型视觉分类变得不可能,并在2007年激发了银河动物园项目(www.galaxyzoo.org);通过要求公众帮助分类星系的类型和形状,开始了有史以来最大的科学合作。从那以后,银河动物园在一系列现在超过30篇的科学论文中证明了自己是研究星系演化的梦幻般的数据库。在这篇特邀演讲中,我谈了一点关于我们理解星系是什么的历史背景,星系分类,以及我们在大规模调查时代对星系的现代看法。最后,我将展示来自星系动物园项目的星系分类对我们理解星系演化的一些贡献。这份出版物是在银河动物园项目20多万名志愿者的参与下出版的。他们的贡献在http://www.galaxyzoo.org/volunteers上单独得到认可。荷航感谢Peter and Patricia Gruber基金会作为2008年Peter and Patricia Gruber基金会IAU研究员提供的资金,以及2010年Leverhulme Trust早期职业奖学金,以及皇家天文学会的支持,以参加IAU第28届GA。
Zooming in on radio relics -- II. How relic morphology probes density fluctuations at the edge of galaxy clusters
Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP)(波茨坦莱布尼茨天体物理研究所);Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik(马克斯·普朗克天体物理研究所);Universität Potsdam(波茨坦大学);Universität Heidelberg(海德堡大学)
Modern cosmological simulations model the universe with increasing sophistication and at higher spatial and temporal resolutions. These enhancements permit detailed comparisons between the simulation outputs and real observational data. Recent projects such as Illustris are capable of producing simulated images that are comparable to those obtained from local surveys. This paper tests how well Illustris achieves this goal across a diverse population of galaxies using visual morphologies derived from Galaxy Zoo citizen scientists. Morphological classifications provided by volunteers for simulat…
We study the mean tidal coherence of galaxy environments as a function of intrinsic luminosity determined by the absolute $r$-band magnitude. The tidal coherence of a galaxy environment is estimated as the cosine of the angle between two minor eigenvectors of the tidal field smoothed at the scales of $2$ and $30\,h^{-1}$Mpc centered on each of the local galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Data Release 10. Creating four luminosity-selected samples of the Sloan galaxies, we control them to have identical density distributions, in order to nullify the dominant effect of the local density. It is f…
The distribution of the spin directions of spiral galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has been a topic of debate in the past two decades, with conflicting conclusions reported even in cases where the same data was used. Here we follow one of the previous experiments by applying the SpArcFiRe algorithm to annotate the spin directions in original dataset of Galaxy Zoo 1. The annotation of the galaxy spin directions is done after a first step of selecting the spiral galaxies in three different manners: manual analysis by Galaxy Zoo classifications, by a model-driven computer analysis, and wi…
Crawling the Cosmic Network: Exploring the Morphology of Structure in the Galaxy Distribution
虽然相干的大尺度结构,如细丝和墙壁是显而易见的星系红移调查,他们迄今为止被证明难以用计算机算法来表征。本文提出了一种利用星系密度场Hessian矩阵的特征值和特征向量来表征大尺度结构形态的方法。通过分析平滑的密度场及其海森矩阵,我们可以确定结构的类型-壁,细丝或团块-作为尺度的函数主导星系的大尺度分布。我们已经运行的模拟星系分布的LCDM宇宙学N体模拟和斯隆数字巡天观测到的星系分布的算法。两个星表的结构形态相似,在10 - 20 h ^{-1} Mpc平滑尺度上均以顺磁为主,在5 h ^{-1} Mpc尺度上均以团块为主。在这两种分布中都有壁存在的证据,但在小于~25 h ^{-1} Mpc的尺度上,壁并不是主要的结构。模拟的分析表明,在一个给定的共动平滑尺度,结构随着时间的推移,从墙壁到细丝到团块,在较小的平滑尺度上发现的那些在给定的时间进一步在这个过程中。
Gradient pattern analysis (GPA) is a well-established technique for measuring gradient bilateral asymmetries of a square numerical lattice. This paper introduces an improved version of GPA designed for galaxy morphometry. We show the performance of the new method on a selected sample of 54,896 objects from the SDSS-DR7 in common with Galaxy Zoo 1 catalog. The results suggest that the second gradient moment, G2, has the potential to dramatically improve over more conventional morphometric parameters. It separates early from late type galaxies better (\sim 90\%) than the CAS system (C \sim 79\%,…
We present an unsupervised machine learning technique that automatically segments and labels galaxies in astronomical imaging surveys using only pixel data. Distinct from previous unsupervised machine learning approaches used in astronomy we use no pre-selection or pre-filtering of target galaxy type to identify galaxies that are similar. We demonstrate the technique on the HST Frontier Fields. By training the algorithm using galaxies from one field (Abell 2744) and applying the result to another (MACS0416.1-2403), we show how the algorithm can cleanly separate early and late type galaxies wit…
We present early results from Radio Galaxy Zoo, a web-based citizen science project for visual inspection and classification of images from all-sky radio surveys. The goals of the project are to classify individual radio sources (particularly galaxies with multiple lobes and/or complex morphologies) as well as matching the continuum radio emission to the host galaxy. Radio images come from the FIRST and ATLAS surveys, while matches to potential hosts are performed with infrared imaging from WISE and SWIRE. The first twelve months of classification yielded more than 1 million classifications of…
A tool for the morphological classification of galaxies: the concentration index
使用斯隆数字巡天数据发布8(SDSS DR 8)的星系数据,我探讨了浓度指数是否是一个很好的形态分类工具,并发现一个合理的纯晚型星系样本可以构建与R-波段浓度指数CI=2.85的选择。然而,相反的情况并不正确,这是由于晚型星系对早型样本的污染相当严重。在这样的分析中,选择效应的影响不太重要。为了解开形态和浓度指数与恒星质量、恒星形成率(SFR)、比恒星形成率(SSFR)和活动星系核(AGN)活动的关系,本文研究了在一定形态下浓度指数与这些性质的关系以及在一定浓度指数下形态与这些性质的关系。结果发现,在一定的形态条件下,高浓度星系比低浓度星系质量大,SFR和SSFR低;而在一定的浓度指数条件下,椭圆星系比旋涡星系质量大,SFR和SSFR低.这一结果表明,星系的恒星质量、SFR和SSFR与星系的聚集指数以及星系的形态有关。此外,我注意到活动星系核只在旋涡星系样本中更集中地被发现。
Closing the Observational Gap in Cosmic Dynamics: AI-Enabled Reconstruction of the Universe's Vorticity and Rotational Flow Morphology
School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University(中山大学物理学院);Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院紫金山天文台);School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院);South-Western Institute for Astronomy Research, Yunnan University(云南大学西南天文研究所);Korea Institute of Advanced Studies (KIAS)(韩国高等科学研究院);Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh(爱丁堡大学天体物理研究所);Peng Cheng Laboratory(鹏城实验室);Institute for Astronomy, The school of Physics, Zhejiang University(浙江大学物理学院天体物理研究所);Center for Cosmology and Computational Astrophysics, Zhejiang University(浙江大学宇宙学与计算天体物理学中心);CSST Science Center for the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area, SYSU(中山大学粤港澳大湾区嫦娥科学中心)