Commission B3 Astroinformatics and Astrostatistics

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Next IAU-IAA Astrostats & Astroinfo online seminar: 14 Mai 2024 / 16:00 (UTC)

Javier Carrón Duque (Instituto de Física Teórica, Madrid, Spain)

Going Beyond Gaussianity and Isotropy in Cosmology: Minkowski Functionals and other statistics

Abstract: Homogeneous and isotropic Gaussian fields are fully described by their 2pt correlation function. However, these assumptions are not always met in the study of cosmological fields. In order to extract further information, the cosmological community has adopted a rich variety of statistics. One of the most interesting is Minkowski Functionals (MFs), powerful statistical tools used to describe the geometry and topology of observable fields. They have seen diverse applications, such as blind tests of non-Gaussianity in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), enhancing parameter constraints, and analyzing Large Scale Structure (LSS). In this talk, I will demystify MFs, focusing on their mathematical underpinnings and demonstrating their versatility in cosmological research. I will particularly highlight recent advancements in applying MFs to CMB polarization, which opens new avenues for testing Gaussianity and isotropy. Finally, I'll introduce 'Pynkowski,' an accessible public Python package we developed for computing MFs and other statistics across various data types, also including theoretical predictions. This talk aims to elucidate the role of MFs and similar higher–order statistics in modern cosmology and encourage further exploration of their potential.

Fink has been selected as a community broker to process the full stream of alerts from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Since 2019, Fink is processing the alert stream from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF).
More information about Fink can be found at https://fink-broker.readthedocs.io

Astrostatistics Newsletter

If you have been wanting to stay up to date on the happenings in the astrostatistics community, or to learn more about astrostatistics, please subscribe to Astrostatistics News. Astrostatistics News (AN) is a newsletter designed to inform, promote, cultivate, and inspire the astrostatistics community. AN serves the astrostatistics community by highlighting and describing recent research developments in astrostatistics at an accessible level to the diverse backgrounds of its members, sharing interesting new algorithms, software, or data sets, promoting relevant events, and striving to inspire new researchers to join in the fun. We anticipate 2 - 3 issues per year, with the potential for more.

To subscribe to Astrostatistics News, go to https://groups.google.com/g/astrostatistics-news and select the “Join group” button. You will need to be logged into your Google account to join the group.

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