Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

uu.sePublications from Uppsala University
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Approximate Bayesian neural Doppler imaging
Inst Astrofis Canarias, C Via Lactea S-N, Tenerife 38205, Spain.;Univ La Laguna, Dept Astrofis, Tenerife 38206, Spain..
Stockholm Univ, Alballova Univ Ctr, Dept Astron, Inst Solar Phys, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden..
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Observational Astrophysics.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3061-4591
2022 (English)In: Astronomy and Astrophysics, ISSN 0004-6361, E-ISSN 1432-0746, Vol. 658, article id A162Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Aims. The non-uniform surface temperature distribution of rotating active stars is routinely mapped with the Doppler imaging technique. Inhomogeneities in the surface produce features in high-resolution spectroscopic observations that shift in wavelength because of the Doppler effect, depending on their position on the visible hemisphere. The inversion problem has been systematically solved using maximum a posteriori regularized methods assuming smoothness or maximum entropy. Our aim in this work is to solve the full Bayesian inference problem by providing access to the posterior distribution of the surface temperature in the star compatible with the observations. Methods. We use amortized neural posterior estimation to produce a model that approximates the high-dimensional posterior distribution for spectroscopic observations of selected spectral ranges sampled at arbitrary rotation phases. The posterior distribution is approximated with conditional normalizing flows, which are flexible, tractable, and easy-to-sample approximations to arbitrary distributions. When conditioned on the spectroscopic observations, these normalizing flows provide a very efficient way of obtaining samples from the posterior distribution. The conditioning on observations is achieved through the use of Transformer encoders, which can deal with arbitrary wavelength sampling and rotation phases. Results. Our model can produce thousands of posterior samples per second, each one accompanied by an estimation of the log-probability. Our exhaustive validation of the model for very high-signal-to-noise observations shows that it correctly approximates the posterior, albeit with some overestimation of the broadening. We apply the model to the moderately fast rotator II Peg, producing the first Bayesian map of its temperature inhomogenities. We conclude that conditional normalizing flows are a very promising tool for carrying out approximate Bayesian inference in more complex problems in stellar physics, such as constraining the magnetic properties using polarimetry.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
EDP Sciences EDP Sciences, 2022. Vol. 658, article id A162
Keywords [en]
stars, atmospheres, activity, line, profiles, methods, data analysis, individual, II Peg
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-469745DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202142027ISI: 000755945000003OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-469745DiVA, id: diva2:1644860
Funder
Swedish Research CouncilSwedish National Space BoardEU, European Research Council, 759548Swedish Research Council, 2017-00625Available from: 2022-03-15 Created: 2022-03-15 Last updated: 2024-01-15Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Kochukhov, Oleg

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Kochukhov, Oleg
By organisation
Observational Astrophysics
In the same journal
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 48 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf