A Classifier-Based Approach to Multi-Class Anomaly Detection Applied to Astronomical Time-Series

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gupta, Rithwik, Muthukrishna, Daniel, Lochner, Michelle
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909290701258752
author Gupta, Rithwik
Muthukrishna, Daniel
Lochner, Michelle
author_facet Gupta, Rithwik
Muthukrishna, Daniel
Lochner, Michelle
contents Automating anomaly detection is an open problem in many scientific fields, particularly in time-domain astronomy, where modern telescopes generate millions of alerts per night. Currently, most anomaly detection algorithms for astronomical time-series rely either on hand-crafted features or on features generated through unsupervised representation learning, coupled with standard anomaly detection algorithms. In this work, we introduce a novel approach that leverages the latent space of a neural network classifier for anomaly detection. We then propose a new method called Multi-Class Isolation Forests (MCIF), which trains separate isolation forests for each class to derive an anomaly score for an object based on its latent space representation. This approach significantly outperforms a standard isolation forest when distinct clusters exist in the latent space. Using a simulated dataset emulating the Zwicky Transient Facility (54 anomalies and 12,040 common), our anomaly detection pipeline discovered $46\pm3$ anomalies ($\sim 85\%$ recall) after following up the top 2,000 ($\sim 15\%$) ranked objects. Furthermore, our classifier-based approach outperforms or approaches the performance of other state-of-the-art anomaly detection pipelines. Our novel method demonstrates that existing and new classifiers can be effectively repurposed for real-time anomaly detection. The code used in this work, including a Python package, is publicly available, https://github.com/Rithwik-G/AstroMCAD.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_08888
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Classifier-Based Approach to Multi-Class Anomaly Detection Applied to Astronomical Time-Series
Gupta, Rithwik
Muthukrishna, Daniel
Lochner, Michelle
Machine Learning
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Automating anomaly detection is an open problem in many scientific fields, particularly in time-domain astronomy, where modern telescopes generate millions of alerts per night. Currently, most anomaly detection algorithms for astronomical time-series rely either on hand-crafted features or on features generated through unsupervised representation learning, coupled with standard anomaly detection algorithms. In this work, we introduce a novel approach that leverages the latent space of a neural network classifier for anomaly detection. We then propose a new method called Multi-Class Isolation Forests (MCIF), which trains separate isolation forests for each class to derive an anomaly score for an object based on its latent space representation. This approach significantly outperforms a standard isolation forest when distinct clusters exist in the latent space. Using a simulated dataset emulating the Zwicky Transient Facility (54 anomalies and 12,040 common), our anomaly detection pipeline discovered $46\pm3$ anomalies ($\sim 85\%$ recall) after following up the top 2,000 ($\sim 15\%$) ranked objects. Furthermore, our classifier-based approach outperforms or approaches the performance of other state-of-the-art anomaly detection pipelines. Our novel method demonstrates that existing and new classifiers can be effectively repurposed for real-time anomaly detection. The code used in this work, including a Python package, is publicly available, https://github.com/Rithwik-G/AstroMCAD.
title A Classifier-Based Approach to Multi-Class Anomaly Detection Applied to Astronomical Time-Series
topic Machine Learning
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08888