SKA Science Data Challenge 2: analysis and results
Journal article, 2023

The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) will explore the radio sky to new depths in order to conduct transformational science. SKAO data products made available to astronomers will be correspondingly large and complex, requiring the application of advanced analysis techniques to extract key science findings. To this end, SKAO is conducting a series of Science Data Challenges, each designed to familiarize the scientific community with SKAO data and to drive the development of new analysis techniques. We present the results from Science Data Challenge 2 (SDC2), which invited participants to find and characterize 233 245 neutral hydrogen (H i) sources in a simulated data product representing a 2000 h SKA-Mid spectral line observation from redshifts 0.25-0.5. Through the generous support of eight international supercomputing facilities, participants were able to undertake the Challenge using dedicated computational resources. Alongside the main challenge, 'reproducibility awards' were made in recognition of those pipelines which demonstrated Open Science best practice. The Challenge saw over 100 participants develop a range of new and existing techniques, with results that highlight the strengths of multidisciplinary and collaborative effort. The winning strategy - which combined predictions from two independent machine learning techniques to yield a 20 per cent improvement in overall performance - underscores one of the main Challenge outcomes: that of method complementarity. It is likely that the combination of methods in a so-called ensemble approach will be key to exploiting very large astronomical data sets.

methods: data analysis

galaxies: statistics

surveys

techniques: imaging spectroscopy

radio lines: galaxies

software: simulations

Author

Philippa Hartley

SKA Organisation

A. Bonaldi

University of Manchester

SKA Organisation

Robert Braun

SKA Organisation

J. N.H.S. Aditya

Shanghai Astronomical Observatory

S. Aicardi

Paris Observatory

L. Alegre

University of Edinburgh

SKA Organisation

A. Chakraborty

Indian Institute of Technology

X. Chen

Chinese Academy of Sciences

S. Choudhuri

Indian Institute of Technology

Queen Mary University of London

A. O. Clarke

SKA Organisation

J. Coles

University of Cambridge

J. S. Collinson

SKA Organisation

D. Cornu

Paris Observatory

L. Darriba

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

M. Delli Veneri

University of Naples Federico II

J. Forbrich

University of Hertfordshire

B. Fraga

Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas

A. Galan

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

J. Garrido

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

F. Gubanov

Moscow State University

Henrik Håkansson

Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre

M. J. Hardcastle

University of Hertfordshire

C. Heneka

University of Hamburg

D. Herranz

CSIC-UC - Instituto de Física de Cantabria (IFCA)

K. M. Hess

University of Groningen

Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

M. Jagannath

PES University

Sumit Jaiswal

Shanghai Astronomical Observatory

R. J. Jurek

University of Queensland

D. Korber

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

S. Kitaeff

University of Western Australia

D. Kleiner

Istituto nazionale di astrofisica (INAF)

B. Q. Lao

Shanghai Astronomical Observatory

X. Lu

Paris Observatory

A. Mazumder

Indian Institute of Technology

J. Moldon

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

R. Mondal

Tel Aviv University

S. Ni

College of Sciences, Northeastern University

Magnus Önnheim

Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre

M. Parra

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

N. Patra

Raman Research Institute

Indian Institute of Technology

A. Peel

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

P. Salomé

Paris Observatory

S. Sánchez-Expósito

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

M. Sargent

University of Sussex

International Space Science Institute

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

B. Semelin

Paris Observatory

P. Serra

Istituto nazionale di astrofisica (INAF)

A. K. Shaw

Indian Institute of Technology

A. X. Shen

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

Australian SKA Regional Centre (AusSRC)

Anders Sjöberg

Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre

L. Smith

University of Cambridge

A. Soroka

Moscow State University

V. Stolyarov

Russian Academy of Sciences

University of Cambridge

E. Tolley

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

Maria Carmen Toribio Perez

Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Onsala Space Observatory

J. M. van der Hulst

University of Groningen

A. Vafaei Sadr

University of Geneva

L. Verdes-Montenegro

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

T. Westmeier

University of Western Australia

K. Yu

Chinese Academy of Sciences

L. Yu

Chinese Academy of Sciences

L. Zhang

Sun Yat-Sen University

Peng Cheng Laboratory

X. Zhang

College of Sciences, Northeastern University

Y. Zhang

Shanghai Astronomical Observatory

Antxon Alberdi

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

M. Ashdown

University of Cambridge

C. R. Bom

Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas

M. Brüggen

University of Hamburg

J. Cannon

Macalester College

R. Chen

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Françoise Combes

Paris Observatory

Collège de France

John Conway

Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Onsala Space Observatory

Frédéric Courbin

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

J. Ding

Sun Yat-Sen University

G. Fourestey

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

J. Freundlich

Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg

L. Gao

College of Sciences, Northeastern University

C. Gheller

Istituto nazionale di astrofisica (INAF)

Q. Guo

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Emil Gustavsson

Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre

Mats Jirstrand

Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre

M. G. Jones

University of Arizona

G. I.G. Józsa

South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)

Peter Kamphuis

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

J.P.J.P. Kneib

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

Michael Lindqvist

Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Onsala Space Observatory

B. Liu

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Y. Liu

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Y. Mao

Tsinghua University

Antoine Marchal

Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics

I. Márquez

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

A. Meshcheryakov

Russian Academy of Sciences

Michael Olberg

Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Onsala Space Observatory

N. Oozeer

South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)

M. Pandey-Pommier

Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier

W. Pei

Chinese Academy of Sciences

B. Peng

Chinese Academy of Sciences

J. Sabater

University of Edinburgh

A. Sorgho

Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)

J. L. Starck

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

C. Tasse

Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

Rhodes University

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

0035-8711 (ISSN) 1365-2966 (eISSN)

Vol. 523 2 1967-1993

Onsala space observatory infrastructure

Swedish Research Council (VR) (2017-00648), 2018-01-01 -- 2021-12-31.

Subject Categories

Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Computer Science

DOI

10.1093/mnras/stad1375

More information

Latest update

8/27/2024