Bayesian Galaxy Asymmetry
Abstract
Galaxy asymmetry is an efficient way to characterize galaxy morphology in atomic hydrogen 21 cm emission detections. We propose a novel Bayesian approach to calculate the probability of an underlying squared differences asymmetry in a noisy detection. This approach has a number of advantages, including the recovery of low asymmetry values where prior noise corrections failed. More importantly, our approach provides robust uncertainties on the asymmetry, enabling a wide variety of statistical studies of galaxy populations. This method is generalized for convolved noise measures. We validate our method using a convergence test. Finally, we show how, when applied to the untargeted HI survey WALLABY, our method nearly triples the number of reliable measurements relatively to the previous state-of-the-art technique. This Bayesian approach to measure asymmetry will therefore further unlock the statistical power of widefield galaxy surveys.
Versions
Related
- Markov Chain Monte Carlo for Bayesian Parametric Galaxy Modeling in LSST
- Cosmic Birefringence from Large Lepton Asymmetry
- Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry from Dirac-Majorana Flip-Flop
- Cosmological constraints on extra radiation and early dark energy with lepton asymmetry and varying quark masses
- Turning Selection Bias into a New Statistic: Asymmetry and Fringes of Lensed Gravitational Waves
BibTeX
@misc{perroncormier2026bayesian,
title = {{Bayesian Galaxy Asymmetry}},
author = {Mathieu Perron-Cormier and Kristine Spekkens and Nathan Deg and Lawrence M. Widrow and Marcin Glowacki},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.26472},
eprint = {2609.26472},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26472},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Bayesian Galaxy Asymmetry
AU - Mathieu Perron-Cormier
AU - Kristine Spekkens
AU - Nathan Deg
AU - Lawrence M. Widrow
AU - Marcin Glowacki
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.26472
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26472
AB - Galaxy asymmetry is an efficient way to characterize galaxy morphology in atomic hydrogen 21 cm emission detections. We propose a novel Bayesian approach to calculate the probability of an underlying squared differences asymmetry in a noisy detection. This approach has a number of advantages, including the recovery of low asymmetry values where prior noise corrections failed. More importantly, our approach provides robust uncertainties on the asymmetry, enabling a wide variety of statistical studies of galaxy populations. This method is generalized for convolved noise measures. We validate our method using a convergence test. Finally, we show how, when applied to the untargeted HI survey WALLABY, our method nearly triples the number of reliable measurements relatively to the previous state-of-the-art technique. This Bayesian approach to measure asymmetry will therefore further unlock the statistical power of widefield galaxy surveys.
ER -