Machine-learning approaches to exoplanet transit detection and candidate validation in wide-field ground-based surveys
Date
22/11/2018Author
Funder
Grant ID
ST/R00824/1
ST/R003203/1
ST/M001296/1
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Show full item recordAbstract
Since the start of the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) program, more than 160 transiting exoplanets have been discovered in the WASP data. In the past, possible transit-like events identified by the WASP pipeline have been vetted by human inspection to eliminate false alarms and obvious false positives. The goal of the present paper is to assess the effectiveness of machine learning as a fast, automated, and reliable means of performing the same functions on ground-based wide-field transit-survey data without human intervention. To this end, we have created training and test datasets made up of stellar light curves showing a variety of signal types including planetary transits, eclipsing binaries, variable stars, and non-periodic signals. We use a combination of machine learning methods including Random Forest Classifiers (RFCs) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to distinguish between the different types of signals. The final algorithms correctly identify planets in the test data ∼90% of the time, although each method on its own has a significant fraction of false positives. We find that in practice, a combination of different methods offers the best approach to identifying the most promising exoplanet transit candidates in data from WASP, and by extension similar transit surveys.
Citation
Schanche , N , Cameron , A C , Hébrard , G , Nielsen , L , Triaud , A H M J , Almenara , J M , Alsubai , K A , Anderson , D R , Armstrong , D J , Barros , S C C , Bouchy , F , Boumis , P , Brown , D J A , Faedi , F , Hay , K , Hebb , L , Kiefer , F , Mancini , L , Maxted , P F L , Palle , E , Pollacco , D L , Queloz , D , Smalley , B , Udry , S , West , R & Wheatley , P J 2018 , ' Machine-learning approaches to exoplanet transit detection and candidate validation in wide-field ground-based surveys ' , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , vol. 483 , pp. 5534-5547 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3146
Publication
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0035-8711Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2018 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3146
Description
ACC acknowledges support from STFC consolidated grant ST/R000824/1 and UK Space Agency grant ST/R003203/1.Collections
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