Bayesian Deconvolution of Astronomical Images with Diffusion Models: Quantifying Prior-Driven Features in Reconstructions
This addresses the problem of improving image resolution for astronomers, but it is incremental as it applies existing diffusion models to a specific domain.
The paper tackles deconvolution of astronomical images to recover intrinsic properties of celestial objects, using diffusion models and Bayesian methods to achieve resolutions comparable to Hubble Space Telescope images and quantify uncertainty in reconstructions.
Deconvolution of astronomical images is a key aspect of recovering the intrinsic properties of celestial objects, especially when considering ground-based observations. This paper explores the use of diffusion models (DMs) and the Diffusion Posterior Sampling (DPS) algorithm to solve this inverse problem task. We apply score-based DMs trained on high-resolution cosmological simulations, through a Bayesian setting to compute a posterior distribution given the observations available. By considering the redshift and the pixel scale as parameters of our inverse problem, the tool can be easily adapted to any dataset. We test our model on Hyper Supreme Camera (HSC) data and show that we reach resolutions comparable to those obtained by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images. Most importantly, we quantify the uncertainty of reconstructions and propose a metric to identify prior-driven features in the reconstructed images, which is key in view of applying these methods for scientific purposes.