Quantitatively rating galaxy simulations against real observations with anomaly detection

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Jin, Zehao, Macciò, Andrea V., Faucher, Nicholas, Pasquato, Mario, Buck, Tobias, Dixon, Keri L., Arora, Nikhil, Blank, Marvin, Vulanović, Pavle
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Jin, Zehao
Macciò, Andrea V.
Faucher, Nicholas
Pasquato, Mario
Buck, Tobias
Dixon, Keri L.
Arora, Nikhil
Blank, Marvin
Vulanović, Pavle
author_facet Jin, Zehao
Macciò, Andrea V.
Faucher, Nicholas
Pasquato, Mario
Buck, Tobias
Dixon, Keri L.
Arora, Nikhil
Blank, Marvin
Vulanović, Pavle
contents Cosmological galaxy formation simulations are powerful tools to understand the complex processes that govern the formation and evolution of galaxies. However, evaluating the realism of these simulations remains a challenge. The two common approaches for evaluating galaxy simulations is either through scaling relations based on a few key physical galaxy properties, or through a set of pre-defined morphological parameters based on galaxy images. This paper proposes a novel image-based method for evaluating the quality of galaxy simulations using unsupervised deep learning anomaly detection techniques. By comparing full galaxy images, our approach can identify and quantify discrepancies between simulated and observed galaxies. As a demonstration, we apply this method to SDSS imaging and NIHAO simulations with different physics models, parameters, and resolution. We further compare the metric of our method to scaling relations as well as morphological parameters. We show that anomaly detection is able to capture similarities and differences between real and simulated objects that scaling relations and morphological parameters are unable to cover, thus indeed providing a new point of view to validate and calibrate cosmological simulations against observed data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_19464
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantitatively rating galaxy simulations against real observations with anomaly detection
Jin, Zehao
Macciò, Andrea V.
Faucher, Nicholas
Pasquato, Mario
Buck, Tobias
Dixon, Keri L.
Arora, Nikhil
Blank, Marvin
Vulanović, Pavle
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmological galaxy formation simulations are powerful tools to understand the complex processes that govern the formation and evolution of galaxies. However, evaluating the realism of these simulations remains a challenge. The two common approaches for evaluating galaxy simulations is either through scaling relations based on a few key physical galaxy properties, or through a set of pre-defined morphological parameters based on galaxy images. This paper proposes a novel image-based method for evaluating the quality of galaxy simulations using unsupervised deep learning anomaly detection techniques. By comparing full galaxy images, our approach can identify and quantify discrepancies between simulated and observed galaxies. As a demonstration, we apply this method to SDSS imaging and NIHAO simulations with different physics models, parameters, and resolution. We further compare the metric of our method to scaling relations as well as morphological parameters. We show that anomaly detection is able to capture similarities and differences between real and simulated objects that scaling relations and morphological parameters are unable to cover, thus indeed providing a new point of view to validate and calibrate cosmological simulations against observed data.
title Quantitatively rating galaxy simulations against real observations with anomaly detection
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.19464