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HOST GALAXY IDENTIFICATION for SUPERNOVA SURVEYS

Publication ,  Journal Article
Gupta, RR; Kuhlmann, S; Kovacs, E; Spinka, H; Kessler, R; Goldstein, DA; Liotine, C; Pomian, K; D'Andrea, CB; Sullivan, M; Carretero, J ...
Published in: Astronomical Journal
December 1, 2016

Host galaxy identification is a crucial step for modern supernova (SN) surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which will discover SNe by the thousands. Spectroscopic resources are limited, and so in the absence of real-time SN spectra these surveys must rely on host galaxy spectra to obtain accurate redshifts for the Hubble diagram and to improve photometric classification of SNe. In addition, SN luminosities are known to correlate with host-galaxy properties. Therefore, reliable identification of host galaxies is essential for cosmology and SN science. We simulate SN events and their locations within their host galaxies to develop and test methods for matching SNe to their hosts. We use both real and simulated galaxy catalog data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys General Catalog and MICECATv2.0, respectively. We also incorporate "hostless" SNe residing in undetected faint hosts into our analysis, with an assumed hostless rate of 5%. Our fully automated algorithm is run on catalog data and matches SNe to their hosts with 91% accuracy. We find that including a machine learning component, run after the initial matching algorithm, improves the accuracy (purity) of the matching to 97% with a 2% cost in efficiency (true positive rate). Although the exact results are dependent on the details of the survey and the galaxy catalogs used, the method of identifying host galaxies we outline here can be applied to any transient survey.

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Published In

Astronomical Journal

DOI

ISSN

0004-6256

Publication Date

December 1, 2016

Volume

152

Issue

6

Related Subject Headings

  • Astronomy & Astrophysics
  • 5107 Particle and high energy physics
  • 5101 Astronomical sciences
  • 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences
 

Citation

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Gupta, R. R., Kuhlmann, S., Kovacs, E., Spinka, H., Kessler, R., Goldstein, D. A., … Wester, W. (2016). HOST GALAXY IDENTIFICATION for SUPERNOVA SURVEYS. Astronomical Journal, 152(6). https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-6256/152/6/154
Gupta, R. R., S. Kuhlmann, E. Kovacs, H. Spinka, R. Kessler, D. A. Goldstein, C. Liotine, et al. “HOST GALAXY IDENTIFICATION for SUPERNOVA SURVEYS.” Astronomical Journal 152, no. 6 (December 1, 2016). https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-6256/152/6/154.
Gupta RR, Kuhlmann S, Kovacs E, Spinka H, Kessler R, Goldstein DA, et al. HOST GALAXY IDENTIFICATION for SUPERNOVA SURVEYS. Astronomical Journal. 2016 Dec 1;152(6).
Gupta, R. R., et al. “HOST GALAXY IDENTIFICATION for SUPERNOVA SURVEYS.” Astronomical Journal, vol. 152, no. 6, Dec. 2016. Scopus, doi:10.3847/0004-6256/152/6/154.
Gupta RR, Kuhlmann S, Kovacs E, Spinka H, Kessler R, Goldstein DA, Liotine C, Pomian K, D’Andrea CB, Sullivan M, Carretero J, Castander FJ, Nichol RC, Finley DA, Fischer JA, Foley RJ, Kim AG, Papadopoulos A, Sako M, Scolnic DM, Smith M, Tucker BE, Uddin S, Wolf RC, Yuan F, Abbott TMC, Abdalla FB, Benoit-Lévy A, Bertin E, Brooks D, Rosell AC, Kind MC, Cunha CE, Costa LND, Desai S, Doel P, Eifler TF, Evrard AE, Flaugher B, Fosalba P, Gaztaaga E, Gruen D, Gruendl R, James DJ, Kuehn K, Kuropatkin N, Maia MAG, Marshall JL, Miquel R, Plazas AA, Romer AK, Sánchez E, Schubnell M, Sevilla-Noarbe I, Sobreira F, Suchyta E, Swanson MEC, Tarle G, Walker AR, Wester W. HOST GALAXY IDENTIFICATION for SUPERNOVA SURVEYS. Astronomical Journal. 2016 Dec 1;152(6).
Journal cover image

Published In

Astronomical Journal

DOI

ISSN

0004-6256

Publication Date

December 1, 2016

Volume

152

Issue

6

Related Subject Headings

  • Astronomy & Astrophysics
  • 5107 Particle and high energy physics
  • 5101 Astronomical sciences
  • 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences