Related papers: What Is In a Survey? Simulation-Induced Selection …
Astronomers are often confronted with funky populations and distributions of objects: brighter objects are more likely to be detected; targets are selected based on colour cuts; imperfect classification yields impure samples. Failing to…
The finite sensitivity of instruments or detection methods means that data sets in many areas of astronomy, for example cosmological or exoplanet surveys, are necessarily systematically incomplete. Such data sets, where the population being…
Cosmology analyses using galaxy clusters by the Dark Energy Survey have recently uncovered an issue of previously unknown selection effect affecting weak lensing mass estimates. In this letter, we use the Illustris-TNG simulation to…
Statistical studies of astronomical data sets, in particular of cataloged properties for discrete objects, are central to astrophysics. One cannot model those objects' population properties or incidences without a quantitative understanding…
The galaxy luminosity function and galaxy stellar mass function are fundamental statistics in the testing of galaxy formation models. Theoretical predictions based on cosmological simulations can deviate from observations, especially at the…
I discuss an issue arising in analyzing data from astronomical surveys: accounting for measurement uncertainties in the properties of individual sources detected in a survey when making inferences about the entire population of sources.…
We are pleased to present a Special Section on Statistics and Astronomy in this issue of the The Annals of Applied Statistics. Astronomy is an observational rather than experimental science; as a result, astronomical data sets both small…
Anomalies drive scientific discovery -- they are associated with the cutting edge of the research frontier, and thus typically exploit data in the low signal-to-noise regime. In astronomy, the prevalence of systematics --- both "known…
Context. Large spectroscopic surveys open the way to explore our Galaxy. In order to use the data from these surveys to understand the Galactic stellar population, we need to be sure that stars contained in a survey are a representative…
Our view of the properties of galaxies is strongly affected by the way in which we survey for them. I discuss some aspects of selection effects and methods to compensate for them. One result is an estimate of the surface brightness…
Sky surveys represent a fundamental data basis for astronomy. We use them to map in a systematic way the universe and its constituents, and to discover new types of objects or phenomena. We review the subject, with an emphasis on the…
Interpretation of cosmological data to determine the number and values of parameters describing the universe must not rely solely on statistics but involve physical insight. When statistical techniques such as "model selection" or…
Selection bias arises when the probability that an observation enters a dataset depends on variables related to the quantities of interest, leading to systematic distortions in estimation and uncertainty quantification. For example, in…
The accumulation of redshifts provides a significant observational bottleneck when using galaxy cluster surveys to constrain cosmological parameters. We propose a simple method to allow the use of samples where there is a fraction of the…
The abundance and mass distribution of galaxy clusters is a sensitive probe of cosmological parameters, through the sensitivity of the high-mass end of the halo mass function to $\Omega_m$ and $\sigma_8$. While galaxy cluster surveys have…
We study the sources of biases and systematics in the derivation of galaxy properties of observational studies, focusing on stellar masses, star formation rates, gas/stellar metallicities, stellar ages and magnitudes/colors. We use…
Only certain galaxies are included in surveys: those bright and large enough to be detectable as extended sources. Because gravitational lensing can make galaxies appear both brighter and larger, the presence of foreground inhomogeneities…
We present a collection of new, open-source computational tools for numerically modeling recent large-scale observational data sets using modern cosmology theory. Specifically, these tools will allow both students and researchers to…
Counting galaxy number density with wide range sky surveys has been well adopted in researches focusing on revealing evolution pattern of different types of galaxies. As understood intuitively the astrophysics environment physics is…
Unobserved confounding arises when an unmeasured feature influences both the treatment and the outcome, leading to biased causal effect estimates. This issue undermines observational studies in fields like economics, medicine, ecology or…