The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (Jan 2023)
Results of the Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-series Classification Challenge (PLAsTiCC)
- R. Hložek,
- A. I. Malz,
- K. A. Ponder,
- M. Dai,
- G. Narayan,
- E. E. O. Ishida,
- T. Allam Jr,
- A. Bahmanyar,
- X. Bi,
- R. Biswas,
- K. Boone,
- S. Chen,
- N. Du,
- A. Erdem,
- L. Galbany,
- A. Garreta,
- S. W. Jha,
- D. O. Jones,
- R. Kessler,
- M. Lin,
- J. Liu,
- M. Lochner,
- A. A. Mahabal,
- K. S. Mandel,
- P. Margolis,
- J. R. Martínez-Galarza,
- J. D. McEwen,
- D. Muthukrishna,
- Y. Nakatsuka,
- T. Noumi,
- T. Oya,
- H. V. Peiris,
- C. M. Peters,
- J. F. Puget,
- C. N. Setzer,
- Siddhartha,
- S. Stefanov,
- T. Xie,
- L. Yan,
- K.-H. Yeh,
- W. Zuo
Affiliations
- R. Hložek
- ORCiD
- David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5S 3H4, Canada ; [email protected]; Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5S 3H4, Canada
- A. I. Malz
- ORCiD
- McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
- K. A. Ponder
- ORCiD
- Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, Campbell Hall 341, University of California Berkeley , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , 1 Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory , 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
- M. Dai
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey , 136 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA
- G. Narayan
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Dr., Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- E. E. O. Ishida
- ORCiD
- Université Clermont Auvergne , CNRS/IN2P3, LPC, F-63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France
- T. Allam Jr
- Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Department of Space and Climate Physics, University College London , Holmbury Hill Rd., Dorking RH5 6NT, UK
- A. Bahmanyar
- Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5S 3H4, Canada
- X. Bi
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University , MI, USA
- R. Biswas
- ORCiD
- The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, Department of Physics, Stockholm University , AlbaNova, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden
- K. Boone
- ORCiD
- DIRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , 3910 15th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- S. Chen
- DiDi, Building B1&B2, Digital Valley, Zhongguancun Software Park Compound 8, Dongbeiwang Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100000, People’s Republic of China
- N. Du
- ORCiD
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University , MI, USA
- A. Erdem
- NVIDIA, Narcisstraat 8B, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- L. Galbany
- ORCiD
- Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC), Campus UAB, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n, E-08193 Barcelona, Spain; Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), E-08034 Barcelona, Spain .
- A. Garreta
- University of the Basque Country , Barrio sarriena s/n, E-48940 Leioa, Spain
- S. W. Jha
- ORCiD
- Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey , 136 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA
- D. O. Jones
- ORCiD
- Gemini Observatory, NSF's NOIRLab, 670 N. A'ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720, USA
- R. Kessler
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, 5640 S Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- M. Lin
- MediaTek, No.1, Dusing 1st Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, 30078, Taiwan
- J. Liu
- NVIDIA, 6454 Living Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15206, USA
- M. Lochner
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape , Bellville, Cape Town, 7535, South Africa; South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), 2 Fir St., Observatory, Cape Town, 7925, South Africa; African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 6 Melrose Rd., Muizenberg, 7945, South Africa
- A. A. Mahabal
- ORCiD
- Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA; Center for Data Driven Discovery, California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- K. S. Mandel
- ORCiD
- Institute of Astronomy and Kavli Institute for Cosmology , Madingley Rd., Cambridge, CB3 0HA, UK; Statistical Laboratory, DPMMS, University of Cambridge , Wilberforce Rd., Cambridge, CB3 0WB, UK
- P. Margolis
- Freelance Machine Learning Specialist, Kaggle Competitions Grandmaster , Zurich, Switzerlang
- J. R. Martínez-Galarza
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, 60 Garden St., Mail Stop 66, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- J. D. McEwen
- Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Department of Space and Climate Physics, University College London , Holmbury Hill Rd., Dorking RH5 6NT, UK
- D. Muthukrishna
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Y. Nakatsuka
- Astamuse Company Ltd., BIZCORE Jinbocho 4F, 3-9-2, Kanda Ogawamachi, Chiyoda Ku, Tokyo To, 101-0052, Japan
- T. Noumi
- Keyence, 1-3-14, Higashinakajima, Higashiyodogawa-ku, Osaka 533-8555, Japan
- T. Oya
- Department of Applied Physics, Waseda University, 1 Chome-104 Totsukamachi, Shinjuku City, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan
- H. V. Peiris
- ORCiD
- The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, Department of Physics, Stockholm University , AlbaNova, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London , Gower St., London, WC1E 6BT, UK
- C. M. Peters
- Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5S 3H4, Canada
- J. F. Puget
- NVIDIA France, 350 Avenue de Boulouris, F-83700 Saint Raphael, France
- C. N. Setzer
- ORCiD
- The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, Department of Physics, Stockholm University , AlbaNova, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden
- Siddhartha
- Hertzwell Pte., 19 Jalan Jintan, Singapore
- S. Stefanov
- Independent researcher, Sofia, Bulgaria
- T. Xie
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University , MI, USA
- L. Yan
- Independent researcher, Utåkravägen 6, SE-433 65 Sävedalen, Sweden
- K.-H. Yeh
- H2O.ai, 2307 Leghorn St., Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
- W. Zuo
- Independent researcher, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510175, People’s Republic of China
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/accd6a
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 267,
no. 2
p. 25
Abstract
Next-generation surveys like the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (Rubin) will generate orders of magnitude more discoveries of transients and variable stars than previous surveys. To prepare for this data deluge, we developed the Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-series Classification Challenge (PLAsTiCC), a competition that aimed to catalyze the development of robust classifiers under LSST-like conditions of a nonrepresentative training set for a large photometric test set of imbalanced classes. Over 1000 teams participated in PLAsTiCC, which was hosted in the Kaggle data science competition platform between 2018 September 28 and 2018 December 17, ultimately identifying three winners in 2019 February. Participants produced classifiers employing a diverse set of machine-learning techniques including hybrid combinations and ensemble averages of a range of approaches, among them boosted decision trees, neural networks, and multilayer perceptrons. The strong performance of the top three classifiers on Type Ia supernovae and kilonovae represent a major improvement over the current state of the art within astronomy. This paper summarizes the most promising methods and evaluates their results in detail, highlighting future directions both for classifier development and simulation needs for a next-generation PLAsTiCC data set.
Keywords
