KilonovaNet: Surrogate models of kilonova spectra with conditional variational autoencoders

ABSTRACT Detailed radiative transfer simulations of kilonova spectra play an essential role in multimessenger astrophysics. Using the simulation results in parameter inference studies requires building a surrogate model from the simulation outputs to use in algorithms requiring sampling. In this wor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. 516; no. 1; pp. 1137 - 1148
Main Authors: Lukošiute, K, Raaijmakers, G, Doctor, Z, Soares-Santos, M, Nord, B
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United Kingdom Oxford University Press 01.09.2022
Subjects:
methods: statistical
gravitational waves
ISSN:0035-8711, 1365-2966
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:ABSTRACT Detailed radiative transfer simulations of kilonova spectra play an essential role in multimessenger astrophysics. Using the simulation results in parameter inference studies requires building a surrogate model from the simulation outputs to use in algorithms requiring sampling. In this work, we present kilonovanet, an implementation of conditional variational autoencoders (cVAEs) for the construction of surrogate models of kilonova spectra. This method can be trained on spectra directly, removing overhead time of pre-processing spectra, and greatly speeds up parameter inference time. We build surrogate models of three state-of-the-art kilonova simulation data sets and present in-depth surrogate error evaluation methods, which can in general be applied to any surrogate construction method. By creating synthetic photometric observations from the spectral surrogate, we perform parameter inference for the observed light-curve data of GW170817 and compare the results with previous analyses. Given the speed with which kilonovanet performs during parameter inference, it will serve as a useful tool in future gravitational wave observing runs to quickly analyse potential kilonova candidates.
Bibliography:USDOE
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1093/mnras/stac2342