Light Curve Classification with DistClassiPy: a new distance-based classifier

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Main Authors: Chaini, Siddharth, Mahabal, Ashish, Kembhavi, Ajit, Bianco, Federica B.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Chaini, Siddharth
Mahabal, Ashish
Kembhavi, Ajit
Bianco, Federica B.
author_facet Chaini, Siddharth
Mahabal, Ashish
Kembhavi, Ajit
Bianco, Federica B.
contents The rise of synoptic sky surveys has ushered in an era of big data in time-domain astronomy, making data science and machine learning essential tools for studying celestial objects. While tree-based models (e.g. Random Forests) and deep learning models dominate the field, we explore the use of different distance metrics to aid in the classification of astrophysical objects. We developed DistClassiPy, a new distance metric based classifier. The direct use of distance metrics is unexplored in time-domain astronomy, but distance-based methods can help make classification more interpretable and decrease computational costs. In particular, we applied DistClassiPy to classify light curves of variable stars, comparing the distances between objects of different classes. Using 18 distance metrics on a catalog of 6,000 variable stars across 10 classes, we demonstrate classification and dimensionality reduction. Our classifier meets state-of-the-art performance but has lower computational requirements and improved interpretability. Additionally, DistClassiPy can be tailored to specific objects by identifying the most effective distance metric for that classification. To facilitate broader applications within and beyond astronomy, we have made DistClassiPy open-source and available at https://pypi.org/project/distclassipy/.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_12120
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Light Curve Classification with DistClassiPy: a new distance-based classifier
Chaini, Siddharth
Mahabal, Ashish
Kembhavi, Ajit
Bianco, Federica B.
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Machine Learning
The rise of synoptic sky surveys has ushered in an era of big data in time-domain astronomy, making data science and machine learning essential tools for studying celestial objects. While tree-based models (e.g. Random Forests) and deep learning models dominate the field, we explore the use of different distance metrics to aid in the classification of astrophysical objects. We developed DistClassiPy, a new distance metric based classifier. The direct use of distance metrics is unexplored in time-domain astronomy, but distance-based methods can help make classification more interpretable and decrease computational costs. In particular, we applied DistClassiPy to classify light curves of variable stars, comparing the distances between objects of different classes. Using 18 distance metrics on a catalog of 6,000 variable stars across 10 classes, we demonstrate classification and dimensionality reduction. Our classifier meets state-of-the-art performance but has lower computational requirements and improved interpretability. Additionally, DistClassiPy can be tailored to specific objects by identifying the most effective distance metric for that classification. To facilitate broader applications within and beyond astronomy, we have made DistClassiPy open-source and available at https://pypi.org/project/distclassipy/.
title Light Curve Classification with DistClassiPy: a new distance-based classifier
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.12120