CFIS CNN post-merger galaxies catalog Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Bickley R.W.
  2. Ellison S.L.
  3. Patton D.R.
  4. Bottrell C.
  5. Gwyn S.
  6. Hudson M.J.
  7. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The importance of the post-merger epoch in galaxy evolution has been well documented, but post-mergers are notoriously difficult to identify. While the features induced by mergers can sometimes be distinctive, they are frequently missed by visual inspection. In addition, visual classification efforts are highly inefficient because of the inherent rarity of post-mergers (~1 per cent in the low-redshift Universe), and non-parametric statistical merger selection methods do not account for the diversity of post-mergers or the environments in which they appear. To address these issues, we deploy a convolutional neural network (CNN) that has been trained and evaluated on realistic mock observations of simulated galaxies from the IllustrisTNG simulations, to galaxy images from the Canada France Imaging Survey, which is part of the Ultraviolet Near Infrared Optical Northern Survey. We present the characteristics of the galaxies with the highest CNN-predicted post-merger certainties, as well as a visually confirmed subset of 699 post-mergers. We find that post-mergers with high CNN merger probabilities [p(x)>0.8] have an average star formation rate that is 0.1 dex higher than a mass- and redshift-matched control sample. The SFR enhancement is even greater in the visually confirmed post-merger sample, a factor of 2 higher than the control sample.

Keywords
  1. interacting-galaxies
  2. visible-astronomy
  3. spectroscopy
  4. photometry
  5. astronomical-object-identification
  6. astrometry
  7. redshifted
  8. stellar-masses
  9. star-forming-regions
  10. classification
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2022MNRAS.514.3294B
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/MNRAS/514/3294
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/514/3294
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.75143294

Access

Web browser access HTML
https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/514/3294
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/514/3294
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/514/3294
IVOA Table Access TAP
https://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/514/3294/table2?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/514/3294/table2?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/514/3294/table2?

History

2025-06-06T13:28:56Z
Resource record created
2025-06-06T13:28:56Z
Created
2025-08-11T20:18:58Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr