Filtering Interlopers with Photometry and Diagnostic Features: A Machine Learning Framework Validated with CSST Slitless Spectroscopy

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Main Authors: Peng, Hui, Yu, Yu, Guo, Yiyang, Gu, Yizhou, Wen, Run, Han, Yunkun, Sui, Jipeng, Zou, Hu, Yang, Xiaohu, Zhang, Pengjie, Zheng, Xian Zhong, Guo, Hong, Jing, Yipeng, Li, Cheng, Zhan, Hu, Zhao, Gongbo
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Published: 2026
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author Peng, Hui
Yu, Yu
Guo, Yiyang
Gu, Yizhou
Wen, Run
Han, Yunkun
Sui, Jipeng
Zou, Hu
Yang, Xiaohu
Zhang, Pengjie
Zheng, Xian Zhong
Guo, Hong
Jing, Yipeng
Li, Cheng
Zhan, Hu
Zhao, Gongbo
author_facet Peng, Hui
Yu, Yu
Guo, Yiyang
Gu, Yizhou
Wen, Run
Han, Yunkun
Sui, Jipeng
Zou, Hu
Yang, Xiaohu
Zhang, Pengjie
Zheng, Xian Zhong
Guo, Hong
Jing, Yipeng
Li, Cheng
Zhan, Hu
Zhao, Gongbo
contents The slitless spectroscopic method employed by missions such as Euclid and the Chinese Space-station Survey Telescope (CSST) faces a fundamental challenge: spectroscopic redshifts derived from their data are susceptible to emission-line misidentification due to the limited spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. This effect systematically introduces interloper galaxies into the sample. Conventional strict selection not only struggles to secure high redshift purity but also drastically reduces completeness by discarding valuable data. To overcome this limitation, we develop an XGBoost classifier that leverages photometric properties and spectroscopic diagnostics to construct a high-purity redshift catalog while maximizing completeness. We validate this method on a simulated sample with spectra generated by the CSST emulator for slitless spectroscopy. Of the $\sim$62 million galaxies that obtain valid redshifts (parent sample), approximately 43% achieve accurate measurements, defined as $|Δz| \leqslant 0.002(1+z)$. From this parent sample, the XGBoost classifier selects galaxies with a selection efficiency of 42.3% on the test set and 42.2% when deployed on the entire parent sample. Crucially, among the retained galaxies, 96.6% (parent sample: 96.5%) achieve accurate measurements, while the outlier fraction ($|Δz|>0.01(1+z)$) is constrained to 0.13% (0.11%). We verified that simplified configurations that exclude either spectroscopic diagnostics (except the measured redshift) or photometric data yield significantly higher outlier fractions, increasing by factors of approximately 3.5 and 6.3, respectively, with the latter case also introducing notable catastrophic interloper contamination. This framework effectively resolves the purity-completeness trade-off, enabling robust large-scale cosmological studies with CSST and similar surveys.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_03883
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Filtering Interlopers with Photometry and Diagnostic Features: A Machine Learning Framework Validated with CSST Slitless Spectroscopy
Peng, Hui
Yu, Yu
Guo, Yiyang
Gu, Yizhou
Wen, Run
Han, Yunkun
Sui, Jipeng
Zou, Hu
Yang, Xiaohu
Zhang, Pengjie
Zheng, Xian Zhong
Guo, Hong
Jing, Yipeng
Li, Cheng
Zhan, Hu
Zhao, Gongbo
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
The slitless spectroscopic method employed by missions such as Euclid and the Chinese Space-station Survey Telescope (CSST) faces a fundamental challenge: spectroscopic redshifts derived from their data are susceptible to emission-line misidentification due to the limited spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. This effect systematically introduces interloper galaxies into the sample. Conventional strict selection not only struggles to secure high redshift purity but also drastically reduces completeness by discarding valuable data. To overcome this limitation, we develop an XGBoost classifier that leverages photometric properties and spectroscopic diagnostics to construct a high-purity redshift catalog while maximizing completeness. We validate this method on a simulated sample with spectra generated by the CSST emulator for slitless spectroscopy. Of the $\sim$62 million galaxies that obtain valid redshifts (parent sample), approximately 43% achieve accurate measurements, defined as $|Δz| \leqslant 0.002(1+z)$. From this parent sample, the XGBoost classifier selects galaxies with a selection efficiency of 42.3% on the test set and 42.2% when deployed on the entire parent sample. Crucially, among the retained galaxies, 96.6% (parent sample: 96.5%) achieve accurate measurements, while the outlier fraction ($|Δz|>0.01(1+z)$) is constrained to 0.13% (0.11%). We verified that simplified configurations that exclude either spectroscopic diagnostics (except the measured redshift) or photometric data yield significantly higher outlier fractions, increasing by factors of approximately 3.5 and 6.3, respectively, with the latter case also introducing notable catastrophic interloper contamination. This framework effectively resolves the purity-completeness trade-off, enabling robust large-scale cosmological studies with CSST and similar surveys.
title Filtering Interlopers with Photometry and Diagnostic Features: A Machine Learning Framework Validated with CSST Slitless Spectroscopy
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03883