Related papers: Analysing surveys of our Galaxy I: basic astrometr…
The classification of galaxies as spirals or ellipticals is a crucial task in understanding their formation and evolution. With the arrival of large-scale astronomical surveys, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), astronomers now…
We review some aspects of the current state of data-intensive astronomy, its methods, and some outstanding data analysis challenges. Astronomy is at the forefront of "big data" science, with exponentially growing data volumes and data…
A dynamic model of the Galaxy is constructed based on kinematic data for masers with trigonometric parallaxes. Maser data is used to compute the model potential in the Galactic plane. The potential is then generalized to three dimensions…
Multi-component modelling of galaxies is a valuable tool in the effort to quantitatively understand galaxy evolution, yet the use of the technique is plagued by issues of convergence, model selection and parameter degeneracies. These issues…
Repp and Szapudi (2019) present a physically-motivated galaxy bias model which remains physical in low-density regions and which also provides a better fit to simulation data than do typical survey-analysis bias models. Given plausible…
The information extracted from large galaxy surveys with the likes of DES, DESI, Euclid, LSST, SKA, and WFIRST will be greatly enhanced if the resultant galaxy catalogues can be cross-correlated with one another. Predicting the nature of…
Context. Generative models open up the possibility to interrogate scientific data in a more data-driven way. Aims: We propose a method that uses generative models to explore hypotheses in astrophysics and other areas. We use a neural…
In these lectures I cover a number of topics in cosmological data analysis. I concentrate on general techniques which are common in cosmology, or techniques which have been developed in a cosmological context. In fact they have very general…
Studies of galaxy clusters have proved crucial in helping to establish the standard model of cosmology, with a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. A theoretical basis that describes clusters as massive, multi-component,…
Despite the large amount of high quality data generated in recent space encounters with asteroids, the majority of our knowledge about these objects comes from ground based observations. Asteroids travelling in orbits that are potentially…
Dynamical models will be key to exploitation of the incoming flood data for our Galaxy. Modelling techniques are reviewed with an emphasis on f(J) modelling.
Modeling galaxy formation in a cosmological context presents one of the greatest challenges in astrophysics today, due to the vast range of scales and numerous physical processes involved. Here we review the current status of models that…
Strong gravitational lensing at the galaxy scale is a valuable tool for various applications in astrophysics and cosmology. The primary uses of galaxy-scale lensing are to study elliptical galaxies' mass structure and evolution, constrain…
Astronomy produces extremely large data sets from ground-based telescopes, space missions, and simulation. The volume and complexity of these rich data sets require new approaches and advanced tools to understand the information contained…
We discuss the opportunities for astronomical discovery via ground-based astrometry carried out in the United States during the 2010-2020 decade. We describe imminent scientific breakthroughs that can be achieved at both classic astrometric…
Under the assumption of a simple and time-invariant gravitational potential, many Galactic dynamics techniques infer the Milky Way's mass and dark matter distribution from stellar kinematic observations. These methods typically rely on…
Abridged: The golden age of astrophysics is upon us with both grand discoveries (extra-solar planets, dark matter, dark energy) and precision cosmology. Fundamental understanding of the working of stars and galaxies is within reach, thanks…
Current analysis of astronomical data are confronted with the daunting task of modeling the awkward features of astronomical data, among which heteroscedastic (point-dependent) errors, intrinsic scatter, non-ignorable data collection…
Extracting magnetic and thermodynamic information from spectropolarimetric observations is a difficult and time consuming task. The amount of science-ready data that will be generated by the new family of large solar telescopes is so large…
We demonstrate how the Syer & Tremaine made-to-measure method of stellar dynamical modelling can be adapted to model a rotating galactic bar. We validate our made-to-measure changes using observations constructed from the existing Shen et…