Related papers: 3D Extinction Mapping Using Hierarchical Bayesian …
One of the fundamental goals of modern astrophysics is to estimate the physical parameters of galaxies. We present a hierarchical Bayesian model to compute age maps from images in the \Ha\ line (taken with Taurus Tunable Filter, TTF),…
The bulge is a region of the Galaxy which is of tremendous interest for understanding Galaxy formation. However, measuring photometry and kinematics in it raises several inherent issues, like high extinction in the visible and severe…
This paper presents large scale extinction maps of most nearby Giant Molecular Clouds of the Galaxy (Lupus, rho-Ophiuchus, Scorpius, Coalsack, Taurus, Chamaeleon, Musca, Corona Australis, Serpens, IC 5146, Vela, Orion, Monoceros R1 and R2,…
This article outlines a method to interpret the extragalactic background light in terms of the large-scale, average properties of galaxies, including the comoving densities of stars and interstellar gas, metals, and dust. These quantities…
Stars are fossils that retain the history of their host galaxies. Elements heavier than helium are created inside stars and are ejected when they die. From the spatial distribution of elements in galaxies, it is therefore possible to…
Cosmological simulations are a powerful tool to advance our understanding of galaxy formation and many simulations model key properties of real galaxies. A question that naturally arises for such simulations in light of high-quality…
The distance to the stars is a fundamental parameter, which is determined via two primary methods - parallax and luminosity. While the parallax is a direct trigonometric method, the luminosity distance is usually influenced by interstellar…
The observation of our home galaxy, the Milky Way (MW), is made difficult by our internal viewpoint. The Gaia survey that contains around 1.6 billion star distances is the new flagship of MW structure and can be combined with other…
There are many pertinent open issues in the area of star and planet formation. Large statistical samples of young stars across star-forming regions are needed to trigger a breakthrough in our understanding, but most optical studies are…
Understanding how galaxies trace the underlying matter density field is essential for characterizing the influence of the large-scale structure on galaxy formation, being therefore a key ingredient in observational cosmology. This…
Galaxies are arranged in interconnected walls and filaments forming a cosmic web encompassing huge, nearly empty, regions between the structures. Many statistical methods have been proposed in the past in order to describe the galaxy…
Gaia data and stellar surveys open the way to the construction of detailed 3D maps of the Galactic interstellar (IS) dust based on the synthesis of star distances and extinctions. Reliable extinction measurements require very accurate…
Galaxies are complex systems the evolution of which apparently results from the interplay of dynamics, star formation, chemical enrichment, and feedback from supernova explosions and supermassive black holes. The hierarchical theory of…
For more than fifty years, astronomers have mapped the neutral hydrogen gas in the Galaxy assuming kinematically derived distances. We employ the distances of nearby young stars, which trace the gas from which they formed, in…
We present a first determination of distances and extinctions for individual stars in the first release of the APOKASC catalogue, built from the joint efforts of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and the…
Although interstellar dust extinction serves as a powerful distance estimator, the solar system's location within the Galactic plane complicates distance determinations, especially for molecular clouds (MCs) at varying distances along the…
Detached eclipsing double line spectroscopic binaries offer an opportunity to measure directly stellar parameters: mass, luminosity, radius, as well as the distance. The only non-trivial step is the need to determine surface brightness of…
Linear regression is common in astronomical analyses. I discuss a Bayesian hierarchical modeling of data with heteroscedastic and possibly correlated measurement errors and intrinsic scatter. The method fully accounts for time evolution.…
A grand challenge of the 21st century cosmology is to accurately estimate the cosmological parameters of our Universe. A major approach to estimating the cosmological parameters is to use the large-scale matter distribution of the Universe.…
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…