Kathy Romer 42-Accepted.pdf (1.25 MB)
Machine learning for searching the dark energy survey for trans-Neptunian objects
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 22:48 authored by B Henghes, O Lahav, D W Gerdes, H W Lin, R Morgan, T M C Abbott, M Aguena, S Allam, J Annis, S Avila, E Bertin, D Brooks, D L Burke, Kathy RomerKathy Romer, Reese WilkinsonReese Wilkinson, DES Collaboration, othersIn this paper we investigate how implementing machine learning could improve the efficiency of the search for Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) within Dark Energy Survey (DES) data when used alongside orbit fitting. The discovery of multiple TNOs that appear to show a similarity in their orbital parameters has led to the suggestion that one or more undetected planets, an as yet undiscovered "Planet 9", may be present in the outer solar system. DES is well placed to detect such a planet and has already been used to discover many other TNOs. Here, we perform tests on eight different supervised machine learning algorithms, using a data set consisting of simulated TNOs buried within real DES noise data. We found that the best performing classifier was the Random Forest which, when optimized, performed well at detecting the rare objects. We achieve an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, (AUC) = 0.996 ± 0.001. After optimizing the decision threshold of the Random Forest, we achieve a recall of 0.96 while maintaining a precision of 0.80. Finally, by using the optimized classifier to pre-select objects, we are able to run the orbit-fitting stage of our detection pipeline five times faster.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the PacificISSN
0004-6280Publisher
IOP PublishingExternal DOI
Issue
1019Volume
133Page range
1-14Article number
a014501Pages
16.0Department affiliated with
- Physics and Astronomy Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2021-01-19First Open Access (FOA) Date
2021-12-11First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2021-01-18Usage metrics
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