ULISSE: Determination of star-formation rate and stellar mass based on the one-shot galaxy imaging technique

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Main Authors: Torbaniuk, Olena, Doorenbos, Lars, Paolillo, Maurizio, Cavuoti, Stefano, Brescia, Massimo, Longo, Giuseppe
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Torbaniuk, Olena
Doorenbos, Lars
Paolillo, Maurizio
Cavuoti, Stefano
Brescia, Massimo
Longo, Giuseppe
author_facet Torbaniuk, Olena
Doorenbos, Lars
Paolillo, Maurizio
Cavuoti, Stefano
Brescia, Massimo
Longo, Giuseppe
contents Modern sky surveys produce vast amounts of observational data, making the application of classical methods for estimating galaxy properties challenging and time-consuming. This challenge can be significantly alleviated by employing automatic machine and deep learning techniques. We propose an implementation of the ULISSE algorithm aimed at determining physical parameters of galaxies, in particular star-formation rates (SFR) and stellar masses ($M_{\ast}$), using only composite-color images. ULISSE is able to rapidly and efficiently identify candidates from a single image based on photometric and morphological similarities to a given reference object with known properties. This approach leverages features extracted from the ImageNet dataset to perform similarity searches among all objects in the sample, eliminating the need for extensive neural network training. Our experiments, performed on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, demonstrate that we are able to predict the joint star formation rate and stellar mass of the target galaxies within 1 dex in 60% to 80% of cases, depending on the investigated subsample (quiescent/star-forming galaxies, early-/late-type, etc.), and within 0.5 dex if we consider these parameters separately. This is approximately twice the fraction obtained from a random guess extracted from the parent population. Additionally, we find ULISSE is more effective for galaxies with active star formation compared to elliptical galaxies with quenched star formation. Additionally, ULISSE performs more efficiently for galaxies with bright nuclei such as AGN. Our results suggest that ULISSE is a promising tool for a preliminary estimation of star-formation rates and stellar masses for galaxies based only on single images in current and future wide-field surveys (e.g., Euclid, LSST), which target millions of sources nightly.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_20365
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ULISSE: Determination of star-formation rate and stellar mass based on the one-shot galaxy imaging technique
Torbaniuk, Olena
Doorenbos, Lars
Paolillo, Maurizio
Cavuoti, Stefano
Brescia, Massimo
Longo, Giuseppe
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Modern sky surveys produce vast amounts of observational data, making the application of classical methods for estimating galaxy properties challenging and time-consuming. This challenge can be significantly alleviated by employing automatic machine and deep learning techniques. We propose an implementation of the ULISSE algorithm aimed at determining physical parameters of galaxies, in particular star-formation rates (SFR) and stellar masses ($M_{\ast}$), using only composite-color images. ULISSE is able to rapidly and efficiently identify candidates from a single image based on photometric and morphological similarities to a given reference object with known properties. This approach leverages features extracted from the ImageNet dataset to perform similarity searches among all objects in the sample, eliminating the need for extensive neural network training. Our experiments, performed on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, demonstrate that we are able to predict the joint star formation rate and stellar mass of the target galaxies within 1 dex in 60% to 80% of cases, depending on the investigated subsample (quiescent/star-forming galaxies, early-/late-type, etc.), and within 0.5 dex if we consider these parameters separately. This is approximately twice the fraction obtained from a random guess extracted from the parent population. Additionally, we find ULISSE is more effective for galaxies with active star formation compared to elliptical galaxies with quenched star formation. Additionally, ULISSE performs more efficiently for galaxies with bright nuclei such as AGN. Our results suggest that ULISSE is a promising tool for a preliminary estimation of star-formation rates and stellar masses for galaxies based only on single images in current and future wide-field surveys (e.g., Euclid, LSST), which target millions of sources nightly.
title ULISSE: Determination of star-formation rate and stellar mass based on the one-shot galaxy imaging technique
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20365