Flow Matching for Atmospheric Retrieval of Exoplanets: Where Reliability meets Adaptive Noise Levels

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Main Authors: Gebhard, Timothy D., Wildberger, Jonas, Dax, Maximilian, Kofler, Annalena, Angerhausen, Daniel, Quanz, Sascha P., Schölkopf, Bernhard
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Gebhard, Timothy D.
Wildberger, Jonas
Dax, Maximilian
Kofler, Annalena
Angerhausen, Daniel
Quanz, Sascha P.
Schölkopf, Bernhard
author_facet Gebhard, Timothy D.
Wildberger, Jonas
Dax, Maximilian
Kofler, Annalena
Angerhausen, Daniel
Quanz, Sascha P.
Schölkopf, Bernhard
contents Inferring atmospheric properties of exoplanets from observed spectra is key to understanding their formation, evolution, and habitability. Since traditional Bayesian approaches to atmospheric retrieval (e.g., nested sampling) are computationally expensive, a growing number of machine learning (ML) methods such as neural posterior estimation (NPE) have been proposed. We seek to make ML-based atmospheric retrieval (1) more reliable and accurate with verified results, and (2) more flexible with respect to the underlying neural networks and the choice of the assumed noise models. First, we adopt flow matching posterior estimation (FMPE) as a new ML approach to atmospheric retrieval. FMPE maintains many advantages of NPE, but provides greater architectural flexibility and scalability. Second, we use importance sampling (IS) to verify and correct ML results, and to compute an estimate of the Bayesian evidence. Third, we condition our ML models on the assumed noise level of a spectrum (i.e., error bars), thus making them adaptable to different noise models. Both our noise level-conditional FMPE and NPE models perform on par with nested sampling across a range of noise levels when tested on simulated data. FMPE trains about 3 times faster than NPE and yields higher IS efficiencies. IS successfully corrects inaccurate ML results, identifies model failures via low efficiencies, and provides accurate estimates of the Bayesian evidence. FMPE is a powerful alternative to NPE for fast, amortized, and parallelizable atmospheric retrieval. IS can verify results, thus helping to build confidence in ML-based approaches, while also facilitating model comparison via the evidence ratio. Noise level conditioning allows design studies for future instruments to be scaled up, for example, in terms of the range of signal-to-noise ratios.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_21477
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Flow Matching for Atmospheric Retrieval of Exoplanets: Where Reliability meets Adaptive Noise Levels
Gebhard, Timothy D.
Wildberger, Jonas
Dax, Maximilian
Kofler, Annalena
Angerhausen, Daniel
Quanz, Sascha P.
Schölkopf, Bernhard
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Machine Learning
Inferring atmospheric properties of exoplanets from observed spectra is key to understanding their formation, evolution, and habitability. Since traditional Bayesian approaches to atmospheric retrieval (e.g., nested sampling) are computationally expensive, a growing number of machine learning (ML) methods such as neural posterior estimation (NPE) have been proposed. We seek to make ML-based atmospheric retrieval (1) more reliable and accurate with verified results, and (2) more flexible with respect to the underlying neural networks and the choice of the assumed noise models. First, we adopt flow matching posterior estimation (FMPE) as a new ML approach to atmospheric retrieval. FMPE maintains many advantages of NPE, but provides greater architectural flexibility and scalability. Second, we use importance sampling (IS) to verify and correct ML results, and to compute an estimate of the Bayesian evidence. Third, we condition our ML models on the assumed noise level of a spectrum (i.e., error bars), thus making them adaptable to different noise models. Both our noise level-conditional FMPE and NPE models perform on par with nested sampling across a range of noise levels when tested on simulated data. FMPE trains about 3 times faster than NPE and yields higher IS efficiencies. IS successfully corrects inaccurate ML results, identifies model failures via low efficiencies, and provides accurate estimates of the Bayesian evidence. FMPE is a powerful alternative to NPE for fast, amortized, and parallelizable atmospheric retrieval. IS can verify results, thus helping to build confidence in ML-based approaches, while also facilitating model comparison via the evidence ratio. Noise level conditioning allows design studies for future instruments to be scaled up, for example, in terms of the range of signal-to-noise ratios.
title Flow Matching for Atmospheric Retrieval of Exoplanets: Where Reliability meets Adaptive Noise Levels
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.21477