Camille Avestruz

D. Huppenkothen, M. Ntampaka, M. Ho et al. · princeton

Machine learning has rapidly become a tool of choice for the astronomical community. It is being applied across a wide range of wavelengths and problems, from the classification of transients to neural network emulators of cosmological simulations, and is shifting paradigms about how we generate and report scientific results. At the same time, this class of method comes with its own set of best practices, challenges, and drawbacks, which, at present, are often reported on incompletely in the astrophysical literature. With this paper, we aim to provide a primer to the astronomical community, including authors, reviewers, and editors, on how to implement machine learning models and report their results in a way that ensures the accuracy of the results, reproducibility of the findings, and usefulness of the method.

Cora Dvorkin, Siddharth Mishra-Sharma, Brian Nord et al.

Methods based on machine learning have recently made substantial inroads in many corners of cosmology. Through this process, new computational tools, new perspectives on data collection, model development, analysis, and discovery, as well as new communities and educational pathways have emerged. Despite rapid progress, substantial potential at the intersection of cosmology and machine learning remains untapped. In this white paper, we summarize current and ongoing developments relating to the application of machine learning within cosmology and provide a set of recommendations aimed at maximizing the scientific impact of these burgeoning tools over the coming decade through both technical development as well as the fostering of emerging communities.

LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration, Eric Aubourg, Camille Avestruz et al.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will produce unprecedented volumes of heterogeneous astronomical data (images, catalogs, and alerts) that challenge traditional analysis pipelines. The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) aims to derive robust constraints on dark energy and dark matter from these data, requiring methods that are statistically powerful, scalable, and operationally reliable. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) are already embedded across DESC science workflows, from photometric redshifts and transient classification to weak lensing inference and cosmological simulations. Yet their utility for precision cosmology hinges on trustworthy uncertainty quantification, robustness to covariate shift and model misspecification, and reproducible integration within scientific pipelines. This white paper surveys the current landscape of AI/ML across DESC's primary cosmological probes and cross-cutting analyses, revealing that the same core methodologies and fundamental challenges recur across disparate science cases. Since progress on these cross-cutting challenges would benefit multiple probes simultaneously, we identify key methodological research priorities, including Bayesian inference at scale, physics-informed methods, validation frameworks, and active learning for discovery. With an eye on emerging techniques, we also explore the potential of the latest foundation model methodologies and LLM-driven agentic AI systems to reshape DESC workflows, provided their deployment is coupled with rigorous evaluation and governance. Finally, we discuss critical software, computing, data infrastructure, and human capital requirements for the successful deployment of these new methodologies, and consider associated risks and opportunities for broader coordination with external actors.

Aakash Patel, Tianqing Zhang, Camille Avestruz et al.

Neural posterior estimation (NPE), a type of amortized variational inference, is a computationally efficient means of constructing probabilistic catalogs of light sources from astronomical images. To date, NPE has not been used to perform inference in models with spatially varying covariates. However, ground-based astronomical images have spatially varying sky backgrounds and point spread functions (PSFs), and accounting for this variation is essential for constructing accurate catalogs of imaged light sources. In this work, we introduce a method of performing NPE with spatially varying backgrounds and PSFs. In this method, we generate synthetic catalogs and semi-synthetic images for these catalogs using randomly sampled PSF and background estimates from existing surveys. Using this data, we train a neural network, which takes an astronomical image and representations of its background and PSF as input, to output a probabilistic catalog. Our experiments with Sloan Digital Sky Survey data demonstrate the effectiveness of NPE in the presence of spatially varying backgrounds and PSFs for light source detection, star/galaxy separation, and flux measurement.

Yicun Duan, Xinyue Li, Camille Avestruz et al.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will commence full-scale operations in 2026, yielding an unprecedented volume of astronomical images. Constructing an astronomical catalog, a table of imaged stars, galaxies, and their properties, is a fundamental step in most scientific workflows based on astronomical image data. Traditional deterministic cataloging methods lack statistical coherence as cataloging is an ill-posed problem, while existing probabilistic approaches suffer from computational inefficiency, inaccuracy, or the inability to perform inference with multiband coadded images, the primary output format for LSST images. In this article, we explore a recently developed Bayesian inference method called neural posterior estimation (NPE) as an approach to cataloging. NPE leverages deep learning to achieve both computational efficiency and high accuracy. When evaluated on the DC2 Simulated Sky Survey -- a highly realistic synthetic dataset designed to mimic LSST data -- NPE systematically outperforms the standard LSST pipeline in light source detection, flux measurement, star/galaxy classification, and galaxy shape measurement. Additionally, NPE provides well-calibrated posterior approximations. These promising results, obtained using simulated data, illustrate the potential of NPE in the absence of model misspecification. Although some degree of model misspecification is inevitable in the application of NPE to real LSST images, there are a variety of strategies to mitigate its effects.

Zhen Lin, Nicholas Huang, Camille Avestruz et al.

Galaxy clusters identified from the Sunyaev Zel'dovich (SZ) effect are a key ingredient in multi-wavelength cluster-based cosmology. We present a comparison between two methods of cluster identification: the standard Matched Filter (MF) method in SZ cluster finding and a method using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). We further implement and show results for a `combined' identifier. We apply the methods to simulated millimeter maps for several observing frequencies for an SPT-3G-like survey. There are some key differences between the methods. The MF method requires image pre-processing to remove point sources and a model for the noise, while the CNN method requires very little pre-processing of images. Additionally, the CNN requires tuning of hyperparameters in the model and takes as input, cutout images of the sky. Specifically, we use the CNN to classify whether or not an 8 arcmin $\times$ 8 arcmin cutout of the sky contains a cluster. We compare differences in purity and completeness. The MF signal-to-noise ratio depends on both mass and redshift. Our CNN, trained for a given mass threshold, captures a different set of clusters than the MF, some of which have SNR below the MF detection threshold. However, the CNN tends to mis-classify cutouts whose clusters are located near the edge of the cutout, which can be mitigated with staggered cutouts. We leverage the complementarity of the two methods, combining the scores from each method for identification. The purity and completeness of the MF alone are both 0.61, assuming a standard detection threshold. The purity and completeness of the CNN alone are 0.59 and 0.61. The combined classification method yields 0.60 and 0.77, a significant increase for completeness with a modest decrease in purity. We advocate for combined methods that increase the confidence of many lower signal-to-noise clusters.

Brian Nord, Andrew J. Connolly, Jamie Kinney et al.

The field of astronomy has arrived at a turning point in terms of size and complexity of both datasets and scientific collaboration. Commensurately, algorithms and statistical models have begun to adapt --- e.g., via the onset of artificial intelligence --- which itself presents new challenges and opportunities for growth. This white paper aims to offer guidance and ideas for how we can evolve our technical and collaborative frameworks to promote efficient algorithmic development and take advantage of opportunities for scientific discovery in the petabyte era. We discuss challenges for discovery in large and complex data sets; challenges and requirements for the next stage of development of statistical methodologies and algorithmic tool sets; how we might change our paradigms of collaboration and education; and the ethical implications of scientists' contributions to widely applicable algorithms and computational modeling. We start with six distinct recommendations that are supported by the commentary following them. This white paper is related to a larger corpus of effort that has taken place within and around the Petabytes to Science Workshops (https://petabytestoscience.github.io/).