Astrostatistics
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Final Program Report: Astrostatistics 1. Introduction The principal purpose of the SAMSI program on Astrostatistics is to identify promising research paths for statistical sciences and applied mathematics in problems of observational astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics, and to initiate research on these problems. Astrostatistics is a growing field of collaborative researchers who specialize in identifying and developing statistical methods for astronomical research. The problems in astronomy are unique in some way and require new methodologies to analyze massive data streaming from large and federated sky surveys. The program was organized in collaboration with the Center for Astrostatistics (CASt) (http://astrostatistics.psu.edu) at Penn State. Indeed, the recent Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy IV conference, held in June 2006, was the closing workshop for the SAMSI Astrostatistics program. 2. Working Group Activities 2.1 Personnel and Program Organization Jogesh Babu (CASt, Penn state) who was in residence at SAMSI during January -May 2006 led the program. Four Working Groups were formed, whose principal functions, as in all SAMSI programs, were to organize the research and ensure communication. In addition, two Intensive Research Sessions were organized. These groups functioned for the entire Spring Semester of 2006. The majority of participants were from outside the Triangle area. All the groups had representation from at least two different fields. Some of these working groups shared some common statistical issues and the groups interacted closely in such cases. Exoplanets working group led by Bill Jefferys (Universities of Texas and Vermont) and Merlise Clyde (Duke University) included: Jogesh Babu (Pennsylvania State University, Department of Statistics), Susie Bayarri (University of Valencia, Department of Statistics and Operations Research), Jim Berger (Duke University, ISDS), Floyd Bullard (Duke University, ISDS), David Chernoff (Cornell University, Department of Astronomy), Pablo de la Cruz (University of Valencia, Observatori Astronomic), Gauri Datta (University of Georgia, Department of Statistics), Peter Driscoll (San Francisco State University), Eric Feigelson (Pennsylvania State University, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics), Phil C. Gregory (University of British Columbia, Department of Physics and Astronomy), Eric Ford (University of California, Berkeley, Department of Astronomy), Tom Jefferys (Unaffiliated), Michael Last (NISS), Hyunsook Lee (Pennsylvania State University, Department of Statistics), Jaeyong Lee (Seoul National University, Department of Statistics), Tom Loredo (Cornell University, Department of Astronomy), Barbara McArthur (University of Texas at Austin, Department of Astronomy), Raman Narayan (San Francisco State University). Surveys and Population Studies working group led by Tom Loredo (Cornell University) included: Jogesh Babu (Penn State University), Ruth Barrera (National University of Colombia), Brendon Brewer (University of Sydney), Alanna Connors (Eureka Scientific), David Chernoff (Cornell University), Pablo de la Cruz (Universitat de Valencia), Gauri S. Datta (University of Georgia), Matthew Fleenor (University of North Carolina), Martin Hendry (University of Glasgow), Woncheol Jang (Duke University), Kristofer Jennings (Purdue University), Chunglee Kim (Northwestern University), Hyunsook Lee (Penn State University), Kuo-Ping Li (University of North Carolina), Ji Meng Loh (Columbia University, Tom Loredo (Cornell University), Vicent Martinez (Universitat de Valencia), Francisco Vera (NISS), Martin Weinberg (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Haywood Smith (University of Florida). Source Detection and Feature Detection working group led by David van Dyk (University of California, Irvine) included: Keith Arnaud (NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center), Jim Chiang (GLAST), Alanna Connors (Eureka Scientific), Peter Freeman (CMU), Jiashun Jin (Purdue University), Vinay Kashyap (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory), Taeyoung Park (Harvard University), Adam Roy (UC Irvine), Jeff Scargle (NASA, Ames Research Center), Aneta Siemiginowska (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory), Alex Young (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), Yaming Yu (University of California, Irvine), Jogesh Babu (Penn State University), Lingsong Zhang (University of North Carolina), Woncheol Jang (Duke University), Rebecca Willett (Duke University), Eric Feigelson (Penn State), Xiao-Li Meng (Harvard University), Thomas Lee (Colorado State University). Gravitational Lensing working group led by Arlie Petters (Duke) included: Charles Keeton (Rutgers University), Christopher Genevese (CMU), Jogesh Babu (Penn State), Ji Meng Loh (Columbia), Brian Rider (Colorado), Nicholas Robbins (Duke, Grad Student), Francisco Vera (NISS, Postdoc), Liliya Williams (Minnesota), Yaming Yu (U. C. Irvine), Zhengyuan Zhu (UNC). Intensive Session on Statistical Issues in Particle Physics led by Louis Lyons (Oxford, UK) met in March, with heavy emphasis during March 6-16. The members include: Michael Woodroofe (University of Michigan), Kyle Cranmer (Brookhaven Lab), Jim Linnemann (Michigan State), Nancy Reid (University of Toronto), Luc Demortier (Rockefeller University), Joel Heinrich (U. Penn), Giovanni Punzi (Scuola Normale Superiore and INFN), Harrison Prosper (Florida State), Pushpa Bhat (Fermi Lab), Bodhi Sen (University of Michigan), Jogesh Babu (Penn State), John Hartigan (Yale University), Hyunsook Lee (Penn State). Intensive Session on Stellar Evolution led by Bill Jefferys (Universities of Texas and Vermont) met during February 20-23. The members include: Ted von Hippel (University of Texas), Steve DeGennaro (University of Texas), Elizabeth Jeffery (University of Texas), Nathan Stein (University of Texas), David van Dyk (University of California, Irvine), Tom Loredo (Cornell), Theodore Arthur Sande (MIT). 2.2. Achieving Diversity Three African American researchers were central to the program. Harrison Prosper was a major participant in the Statistical Issues in Particle Physics intensive session, Arlie Petters was the leader of Gravitational Lensing working group, and Don Richards was on the overall program leaders committee. Participation of women was also extensive. Merlise Clyde was the co-leader of the Exoplanets working group. Susie Bayarri and Barbara McArthur (who gave a keynote presentation at the kickoff meeting) also participated in this group. Ruth Stella Barrera Rojas and Alanna Connors – who was also on the overall program leaders committee – participated via teleconference in Surveys and Population studies and Source and Feature Detection working groups. A graduate student Hyunsook Lee participated in all the working groups. In addition, Rebecca Willett, Aneta Siemiginowska, and Ramani Pilla participated in the Source and Feature Detection working group; Nancy Reid and Pushpa Bhat participated in the Statistical Issues in Particle Physics intensive session; and Elizabeth Jeffery participated in the Stellar Evolution intensive session. Two other women, Megan Sosey and Fabrizia Guglielmetti were involved in the planning meeting for the program. 2.3. Research Each Working Group had regularly scheduled meetings/teleconferences throughout the program period; most groups also scheduled one or more intensive working sessions that brought many members to SAMSI for face-to-face collaboration. Each Working Group, as well as the two separate intensive sessions on particle physics and stellar evolution, developed a detailed research agenda and followed through. 2.4. Exoplanets The Exoplanets working group began its work with a two week intensive session immediately following the January 2006 opening workshop, with many group members in residence at SAMSI for this period. The main goals for this session were to describe the observing processes and planet orbit models in mathematical detail, and to survey existing analysis methods. The many group meetings held during this session quickly got the statisticians “up to speed” on exoplanet modeling, and also allowed astronomers who had been working separately on these problems to learn about the details of each others’ approaches. Fortuitously, this period coincided with the announcement of the discovery of an exoplanet by gravitational lensing, so this new observational technique was also briefly covered. Eric Ford and Barbara MacArthur played particularly key roles in the early meetings, Ford due to his collaboration with a leading observing team using the radial velocity method (the California/Carnegie collaboration), and MacArthur due to her participation in HST astrometric exoplanet observations (with Bill Jefferys). The intensive session was a great success in establishing a common foundation between statisticians and astronomers in the group. This allowed the subsequent weekly group meetings to immediately focus on important technical issues. The initial meetings focused on model specification (including optimal parameterization), prior selection (establishing a common set of default priors so investigators could better compare results) and MCMC methods for fitting models to radial velocity data. On the last topic, Eric Ford and Phil Gregory made detailed presentations on two very different approaches: Ford described random walk Metropolis samplers, while Gregory described a parallel tempering algorithm, innovative in its use of a feedback control system to tune sampler parameters. MacArthur also described a simpler nonlinear fitting approach. Statisticians helped