The PAU survey: star–galaxy classification with multi narrow-band data

Cabayol, L; Sevilla-Noarbe, I; Fernández, E; Carretero, J; Eriksen, M; Serrano, S; Alarcón, A; Amara, A; Casas, R; Castander, FJ; de Vicente, J; Folger, M; García-Bellido, J; Gaztanaga, E; Hoekstra, H; Miquel, R; Padilla, C; Sánchez, E; Stothert, L; Tallada, P; Tortorelli, L

Abstract

Classification of stars and galaxies is a well-known astronomical problem that has been treated using different approaches, most of them relying on morphological information. In this paper, we tackle this issue using the low-resolution spectra from narrow-band photometry, provided by the Physics of the Accelerating Universe survey. We find that, with the photometric fluxes from the 40 narrow-band filters and without including morphological information, it is possible to separate stars and galaxies to very high precision, 98.4 per cent purity with a completeness of 98.8 per cent for objects brighter than I = 22.5. This precision is obtained with a convolutional neural network as a classification algorithm, applied to the objects’ spectra. We have also applied the method to the ALHAMBRA photometric survey and we provide an updated classification for its Gold sample.

Citation

Cabayol, L., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Fernández, E., Carretero, J., Eriksen, M., Serrano, S., …Tortorelli, L. (2019). The PAU survey: star–galaxy classification with multi narrow-band data. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 483(1), 529-539. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3129

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 13, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Nov 18, 2018
• Publication Date: Feb 28, 2019
• Deposit Date: Apr 10, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 11, 2019
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 483
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 529-539
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3129