Statistical Challenges in Astronomy

Digital sky surveys, high-precision astrometry from satellite data, deep-space data from orbiting telescopes, and the like have all increased the quantity and quality of astronomical data by orders of magnitude per year for several years. Making sense of this wealth of data requires sophisticated statistical techniques. Fortunately, statistical methodologies have similarly made great strides in recent years. Powerful synergies thus emerge when astronomers and statisticians join in examining astrostatistical problems and approaches. The book begins with an historical overview and tutorial articles on basic cosmology for statisticians and the principles of Bayesian analysis for astronomers. As in earlier volumes in this series, research contributions discussing topics in one field are joined with commentary from scholars in the other. Thus, for example, an overview of Bayesian methods for Poissonian data is joined by discussions of planning astronomical observations with optimal efficiency and nested models to deal with instrumental effects. The principal theme for the volume is the statistical methods needed to model fundamental characteristics of the early universe on its largest scales.

Table of Contents:
Statistical Challenge in Medieval (and Later) Astronomy.- Power from Understanding the Shape of Measurement: Progress in Bayesian Inference for Astrophysics.- Hierarchical Models, Data Augmentation, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo.- Bayesian Adaptive Exploration.- Bayesian Model Selection and Analysis for Cepheid Star Oscillations.- Bayesian Multiscale Methods for Poisson Count Data.- NASA’s Astrophysics Data Environment.- Statistical and Astronomical Challenges in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.- Challenges for Cluster Analysis in a Virtual Observatory.- Statistics of Galaxy Clustering.- Analyzing Large Data Sets in Cosmology.- The Cosmic Foam: Stochastic Geometry and Spatial Clustering across the Universe.- Statistics and the Cosmic Microwave Background.- Inference in Microwave Cosmology: A Frequentist Perspective.- Nonparametric Inference in Astrophysics.- Random Forests: Finding Quasars.- Interactive and Dynamic Graphics for Data Analysis: A Case Study On Quasar Data.- Computational AstroStatistics: Fast and Efficient Tools for Analysing Huge Astronomical Data Sources.- Clustering in High-Dimensional Data Spaces.- Advanced Tools for Astronomical Time Series and Image Analysis.- Frequency Estimation and Generalized Lomb-Scargle Periodograms.- Multiscale Methods in Astronomy.- Threshold Selection in Transform Shrinkage.- The Statistical Challenges of Wavelet-Based Source Detection.- Reflections on SCMA III.- An Astronomer’s Perspective on SCMA III.- Ensembles of Classifiers.- A Model for Brightest Galaxies Using Extreme Value Statistics.- New Statistical Goodness-of-Fit Techniques in Noisy Inhomogeneous Regression Problems with an Application to the Problem of Recovering of the Luminosity Density of the Milky Way from Surface Brightness Data.- Measuring the GalaxyPower Spectrum with Multiresolution Decomposition.- Finding Gamma-Ray Pulsars with Sparse Bayes Blocks.- Analysis of the Fractal Structure of the Horsehead Nebula.- On the Statistics of the Gravitational Field.- Cross-identification of Very Large Catalogues.- Minimal Spanning Tree Technique.- A Statistical Chromatic Study of Nearby Galaxies.- Detection of Non-Gaussianity on the Sphere Using Spherical Wavelets.- Characterising Anomalous Transport in Accretion Disks from X-ray Observations.- A Bayesian Analysis of the Radio Binary LS I +61°303.- Accounting for Absorption Lines in High Energy Spectra.- ?2-method: An Automatic Classification Technique.- Wavelet Analysis of a Large Period Change in the Mira Variable R Cen.- Nonparametric Statistical Models of Astronomical Systems.- Likelihood Estimation of Gamma Ray Bursts Duration Distribution.- Nonparametric Density Estimation and Galaxy Clustering.- Teaching Bayesian Statistics Through Simulation.- New MCMC Methods to Address Pile-up in the Chandra X-ray Observatory.- Modeling Stellar Microflares.- Canaries in the Data Mine: Improving Trained Classifiers.- Wavelet Analysis of Heteroscedastic, Unevenly Spaced Data: The Case of OJ 287 Revisited.- Estimating Large-Scale Structure From QSO Absorbers: Using Across-Line Information.- Point Source Detection on the Sphere Using Wavelets and Optimal Filters.- Constraining the Cosmological Constant from Large-Scale Redshift-Space Clustering.- Multivariate Monte Carlo Methods with Clusters of Galaxies.- A New Tool for Automated Classification of Astronomical Images.- Parameter Estimation via Neural Networks.- Correlations at Large Scale.- Constraining Cosmological Models by the Cluster Mass Functions.- Analysing Cosmic Large Scale Structure using Surrogate Data.- DelaunayRecovery of Cosmic Density and Velocity Probes.- A Large Proper Motion Survey of the Pleiades Cluster.- Bayesian Spectral Analysis of ,MAD- Stars.- Stellar Membership in Open Clusters Using Mixture Densities.- Comparison of Object Detection Procedures for XMM-Newton Images.- Astronomical Aspects of Multifractal Point-Pattern Analysis: Application to the DENIS/2MASS Near-Infrared and BATSE Gamma-Ray Data.- Higher-order Correlations of Cosmological Fluctuation Fields.- Bayesian Multiscale Deconvolution Applied to Gamma-ray Spectroscopy.