HaloFlow II: Robust Galaxy Halo Mass Inference with Domain Adaptation

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Garuda, Nikhil, Hahn, ChangHoon, Bottrell, Connor, Lee, Khee-Gan
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866912963682631680
author Garuda, Nikhil
Hahn, ChangHoon
Bottrell, Connor
Lee, Khee-Gan
author_facet Garuda, Nikhil
Hahn, ChangHoon
Bottrell, Connor
Lee, Khee-Gan
contents Precise halo mass ($M_h$) measurements are crucial for cosmology and galaxy formation. HaloFlow introduced a simulation-based inference (SBI) framework that uses state-of-the-art simulated galaxy images to precisely infer $M_h$. However, for HaloFlow to be applied to observations, it must be generalizable even when the underlying galaxy formation physics differ from those in the simulations on which it was trained. Without this generalization, HaloFlow produces biased and overconfident $M_h$ posteriors when applied to simulations with different physics. We introduce HaloFlow$^{\rm DA}$, an extension of HaloFlow that integrates domain adaptation (DA) with SBI to mitigate these cross-simulation shifts. Using synthetic galaxy images forward-modeled from the IllustrisTNG, EAGLE, and SIMBA simulations, we test two DA methods: Domain-Adversarial Neural Networks (DANN) and Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD). Incorporating DA significantly reduces bias and improves calibration, with MMD achieving the most stable performance, lowering the normalized residual metric, $β$, by an average of 31% and up to 57% when trained and tested on different simulations. Overall, HaloFlow$^{\rm DA}$ produces more robust, less biased with similar precision, $M_h$ constraints than the standard approach using the stellar-to-halo mass relation. HaloFlow$^{\rm DA}$ enables consistent, simulation-trained inference models to generalize across domains, establishing a foundation for robust $M_h$ inference from real HSC-SSP observations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_12380
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle HaloFlow II: Robust Galaxy Halo Mass Inference with Domain Adaptation
Garuda, Nikhil
Hahn, ChangHoon
Bottrell, Connor
Lee, Khee-Gan
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Precise halo mass ($M_h$) measurements are crucial for cosmology and galaxy formation. HaloFlow introduced a simulation-based inference (SBI) framework that uses state-of-the-art simulated galaxy images to precisely infer $M_h$. However, for HaloFlow to be applied to observations, it must be generalizable even when the underlying galaxy formation physics differ from those in the simulations on which it was trained. Without this generalization, HaloFlow produces biased and overconfident $M_h$ posteriors when applied to simulations with different physics. We introduce HaloFlow$^{\rm DA}$, an extension of HaloFlow that integrates domain adaptation (DA) with SBI to mitigate these cross-simulation shifts. Using synthetic galaxy images forward-modeled from the IllustrisTNG, EAGLE, and SIMBA simulations, we test two DA methods: Domain-Adversarial Neural Networks (DANN) and Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD). Incorporating DA significantly reduces bias and improves calibration, with MMD achieving the most stable performance, lowering the normalized residual metric, $β$, by an average of 31% and up to 57% when trained and tested on different simulations. Overall, HaloFlow$^{\rm DA}$ produces more robust, less biased with similar precision, $M_h$ constraints than the standard approach using the stellar-to-halo mass relation. HaloFlow$^{\rm DA}$ enables consistent, simulation-trained inference models to generalize across domains, establishing a foundation for robust $M_h$ inference from real HSC-SSP observations.
title HaloFlow II: Robust Galaxy Halo Mass Inference with Domain Adaptation
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12380