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Astrostatistical Challenges for the New Astronomy pp 63–86Cite as

BEAMS: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff in Supernova Analysis

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Part of the book series: Springer Series in Astrostatistics ((SSIA,volume 1))

Abstract

We present Bayesian Estimation Appliedto Multiple Species (BEAMS), an algorithm designed to deal with parameter estimation when using contaminated data. We introduce the algorithm and demonstrate how it works with the help of a Gaussian simulation. We then apply it to supernova data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), showing how the resulting confidence contours of the cosmo-logical parameters shrink significantly.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We apologize for the use of technical jargon in the description of the samples.

  2. 2.

    The BOSS survey recently obtained host galaxy redshifts of all high-quality SN candidates from all three seasons of the SDSS-II Supernova Search. This work does not use the additional BOSS information and only uses the host galaxy redshifts obtained during the running of the SDSS-II survey.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Michelle Knights and the SDSS-II SN team (especially Rick Kessler, John Marriner and Masao Sako) for helpful comments. RH thanks Jo Dunkley, Olaf Davis, David Marsh, Sarah Miller and Joe Zuntz for useful discussions, and thanks the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, Chicago, the South African Astronomical Observatory, the University of Cape Town, and the University of Geneva for hospitality while this work was being completed. MK would like to thank AIMS for hospitality during part of the work. RH acknowledges funding from the Rhodes Trust and Christ Church. MK acknowledges funding by the Swiss NSF. BB acknowledges funding from the NRF and DST. Part of the numerical calculations for this paper were performed on the Andromeda cluster of the University of Geneva.

Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS Web Site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, University of Cambridge, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département de Physique Théorique and Center for Astroparticle Physics, Université de Genève, Quai E. Ansermet 24, CH-1211, Genève 4, Switzerland

    Martin Kunz

  2. Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton Univ, Peyton Hall, Ivy Lane, NJ, 08544, USA

    Renée Hlozek (Lyman Spitzer Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow)

  3. Dept. of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Univ of Cape Town, Cape Town, SA, South Africa

    Bruce A. Bassett (Prof of Applied Mathematics) & James Newling

  4. African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 68 Melrose Road, Muizenberg, 7945, SA, South Africa

    Bruce A. Bassett (Prof of Applied Mathematics)

  5. South African Astronomical Observatory, Observatory, Cape Town, SA, South Africa

    Bruce A. Bassett (Prof of Applied Mathematics)

  6. Dept of Physics, Univ. of Western Cape, Bellville, 7535, Cape Town, SA, South Africa

    Mathew Smith

  7. Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravity Centre (ACGC), Dept. of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Univ. of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700, SA, South Africa

    Mathew Smith

  8. Dept. of Statistical Sciences, Univ. of Cape Town, Cape Town, SA, South Africa

    Melvin Varughese

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  1. Martin Kunz
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  2. Renée Hlozek
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  3. Bruce A. Bassett
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  4. Mathew Smith
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Correspondence to Martin Kunz .

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  1. W. Heritage Way 7242, Florence, 85232, Arizona, USA

    Joseph M. Hilbe

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Kunz, M., Hlozek, R., Bassett, B.A., Smith, M., Newling, J., Varughese, M. (2013). BEAMS: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff in Supernova Analysis. In: Hilbe, J. (eds) Astrostatistical Challenges for the New Astronomy. Springer Series in Astrostatistics, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3508-2_4

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