Machine Learning for Searching the Dark Energy Survey for Trans-Neptunian Objects

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how implementing machine learning could improve the efficiency of the search for Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) within Dark Energy Survey (DES) data when used alongside orbit fitting. The discovery of multiple TNOs that appear to show a similarity in their orbital parameters has led to the suggestion that one or more undetected planets, an as yet undiscovered "Planet 9", may be present in the outer Solar System. DES is well placed to detect such a planet and has already been used to discover many other TNOs. Here, we perform tests on eight different supervised machine learning algorithms, using a dataset consisting of simulated TNOs buried within real DES noise data. We found that the best performing classifier was the Random Forest which, when optimised, performed well at detecting the rare objects. We achieve an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, (AUC) $=0.996\pm 0.001$. After optimizing the decision threshold of the Random Forest, we achieve a recall of 0.96 while maintaining a precision of 0.80. Finally, by using the optimized classifier to pre-select objects, we are able to run the orbit-fitting stage of our detection pipeline five times faster.

arXiv commentPublished in PASP, 16 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (30)

• The Dark Energy Camera
• The Dark Energy Survey: more than dark energy - an overview
• Evidence for a Distant Giant Planet in the Solar System
• Data Mining and Machine Learning in Astronomy
• The Planet Nine Hypothesis
• The Difference Imaging Pipeline for the Transient Search in the Dark Energy Survey
• Orbit Fitting and Uncertainties for Kuiper Belt Objects
• The Outer Solar System Origins Survey: I. Design and First-Quarter Discoveries
• What if Planet 9 is a Primordial Black Hole?
• OSSOS VI. Striking Biases in the detection of large semimajor axis Trans-Neptunian Objects
• Extreme trans-Neptunian objects and the Kozai mechanism: signalling the presence of trans-Plutonian planets
• Constraints on the location of a possible 9th planet derived from the Cassini data
• Generation of Highly Inclined Trans-Neptunian Objects by Planet Nine
• A New High Perihelion Inner Oort Cloud Object: 2015 TG387
• Solar Obliquity Induced by Planet Nine
• Discovery and Dynamical Analysis of an Extreme Trans-Neptunian Object with a High Orbital Inclination
• Dynamical Evolution Induced by Planet Nine
• The inclination of the planetary system relative to the solar equator may be explained by the presence of Planet 9
• Observational bias and the clustering of distant eccentric Kuiper belt objects
• Orbital clustering of distant Kuiper Belt Objects by hypothetical Planet 9. Secular or resonant ?
• Trans-Neptunian objects found in the first four years of the Dark Energy Survey
• Testing the isotropy of the Dark Energy Survey's extreme trans-Neptunian objects
• Discovery and Physical Characterization of a Large Scattered Disk Object at 92 AU
• Orbital clustering in the distant solar system
• Dynamical Classification of Trans-Neptunian Objects Detected by the Dark Energy Survey
• Was Planet 9 captured in the Sun's natal star-forming region?
• Observation of Two New L4 Neptune Trojans in the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Fields
• A dwarf planet class object in the 21:5 resonance with Neptune
• Dynamical Analysis of Three Distant Trans-Neptunian Objects with Similar Orbits
• The Influence of Planet 9 on the Orbits of Distant TNOs: The Case for a Low Perihelion Planet

Cited by in corpus (2)

• A search of the full six years of the Dark Energy Survey for outer Solar System objects
• NGTS clusters survey IV. Search for Dipper stars in the Orion Nebular Cluster