Analyzing Data from Astronomical Surveys: Issues and Directions

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Astronomical surveys arise in nearly every astronomical subdiscipline, and the resulting source or event catalogs span a huge range of sizes, from dozens to 10^9. Despite this enormous diversity, several common themes arise in survey data analysis, many reflecting the fundamentally hierarchical nature of survey data analysis: the intimate interplay between analysis of data for individual sources or events in surveys, and analysis of the surveyed population as a whole. Much attention has been paid to accounting for effects of truncation and censoring in suveys. I instead focus on the statistical challenges that arise when there are significant uncertainties in source characteristics (either from measurement error or ``intrinsic scatter'' of source properties). The issues range from calibration of luminosity and redshift indicators, to propagation of source uncertainties through population-level analysis, including measurement error, ``soft'' truncation and censoring, and treatment of Eddington, Lutz-Kelker, and Malmquist biases. For statisticians, I present an overview of how these issues arise in astronomy. For astronomers, I summarize some of the activity of the SAMSI Surveys and Population Studies working group, identifying areas of research in statistics with promise for resolving outstanding issues in astronomical survey analysis.

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