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  1. Abstract

    We present a machine-learning framework to accurately characterize the morphologies of active galactic nucleus (AGN) host galaxies withinz< 1. We first use PSFGAN to decouple host galaxy light from the central point source, then we invoke the Galaxy Morphology Network (GaMorNet) to estimate whether the host galaxy is disk-dominated, bulge-dominated, or indeterminate. Using optical images from five bands of the HSC Wide Survey, we build models independently in three redshift bins: low (0 <z< 0.25), mid (0.25 <z< 0.5), and high (0.5 <z< 1.0). By first training on a large number of simulated galaxies, then fine-tuning using far fewer classified real galaxies, our framework predicts the actual morphology for ∼60%–70% of the host galaxies from test sets, with a classification precision of ∼80%–95%, depending on the redshift bin. Specifically, our models achieve a disk precision of 96%/82%/79% and bulge precision of 90%/90%/80% (for the three redshift bins) at thresholds corresponding to indeterminate fractions of 30%/43%/42%. The classification precision of our models has a noticeable dependency on host galaxy radius and magnitude. No strong dependency is observed on contrast ratio. Comparing classifications of real AGNs, our models agree well with traditional 2D fitting with GALFIT. The PSFGAN+GaMorNetframework does not depend on the choice of fitting functions or galaxy-related input parameters, runs orders of magnitude faster than GALFIT, and is easily generalizable via transfer learning, making it an ideal tool for studying AGN host galaxy morphology in forthcoming large imaging surveys.

     
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  2. Abstract

    We introduce a novel machine-learning framework for estimating the Bayesian posteriors of morphological parameters for arbitrarily large numbers of galaxies. The Galaxy Morphology Posterior Estimation Network (GaMPEN) estimates values and uncertainties for a galaxy’s bulge-to-total-light ratio (LB/LT), effective radius (Re), and flux (F). To estimate posteriors, GaMPEN uses the Monte Carlo Dropout technique and incorporates the full covariance matrix between the output parameters in its loss function. GaMPEN also uses a spatial transformer network (STN) to automatically crop input galaxy frames to an optimal size before determining their morphology. This will allow it to be applied to new data without prior knowledge of galaxy size. Training and testing GaMPEN on galaxies simulated to matchz< 0.25 galaxies in Hyper Suprime-Cam Wideg-band images, we demonstrate that GaMPEN achieves typical errors of 0.1 inLB/LT, 0.″17 (∼7%) inRe, and 6.3 × 104nJy (∼1%) inF. GaMPEN's predicted uncertainties are well calibrated and accurate (<5% deviation)—for regions of the parameter space with high residuals, GaMPEN correctly predicts correspondingly large uncertainties. We also demonstrate that we can apply categorical labels (i.e., classifications such ashighly bulge dominated) to predictions in regions with high residuals and verify that those labels are ≳97% accurate. To the best of our knowledge, GaMPEN is the first machine-learning framework for determining joint posterior distributions of multiple morphological parameters and is also the first application of an STN to optical imaging in astronomy.

     
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