Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation
Modern large-scale cosmological simulations model the universe with increasing sophistication and at higher spatial and temporal resolutions. These ongoing enhancements permit increasingly detailed comparisons between the simulation outputs and real observational data. Recent projects such as Illust...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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American Astronomical Society
2018
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50423/ |
| _version_ | 1848798247269695488 |
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| author | Dickinson, Hugh Fortson, Lucy Lintott, Chris Scarlata, Claudia Willett, Kyle Bamford, Steven Beck, Melanie Cardamone, Carolin Galloway, Melanie Simmons, Brooke Keel, William Kruk, Sandor Masters, Karen Vogelsberger, Mark Torrey, Paul Snyder, Gregory F. |
| author_facet | Dickinson, Hugh Fortson, Lucy Lintott, Chris Scarlata, Claudia Willett, Kyle Bamford, Steven Beck, Melanie Cardamone, Carolin Galloway, Melanie Simmons, Brooke Keel, William Kruk, Sandor Masters, Karen Vogelsberger, Mark Torrey, Paul Snyder, Gregory F. |
| author_sort | Dickinson, Hugh |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Modern large-scale cosmological simulations model the universe with increasing sophistication and at higher spatial and temporal resolutions. These ongoing enhancements permit increasingly detailed comparisons between the simulation outputs and real observational data. Recent projects such as Illustris are capable of producing simulated images that are designed to be comparable to those obtained from local surveys. This paper tests the degree to which Illustris achieves this goal across a diverse population of galaxies using visual morphologies derived from Galaxy Zoo citizen scientists. Morphological classifications provided by these volunteers for simulated galaxies are compared with similar data for a compatible sample of images drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Legacy Survey. This paper investigates how simple morphological characterization by human volunteers asked to distinguish smooth from featured systems differs between simulated and real galaxy images. Significant differences are identified, which are most likely due to the limited resolution of the simulation, but which could be revealing real differences in the dynamical evolution of populations of galaxies in the real and model universes. Specifically, for stellar masses, a substantially larger proportion of Illustris galaxies that exhibit disk-like morphology or visible substructure, relative to their SDSS counterparts. Toward higher masses, the visual morphologies for simulated and observed galaxies converge and exhibit similar distributions. The stellar mass threshold indicated by this divergent behavior confirms recent works using parametric measures of morphology from Illustris simulated images. When , the Illustris data set contains substantially fewer galaxies that classifiers regard as unambiguously featured. In combination, these results suggest that comparison between the detailed properties of observed and simulated galaxies, even when limited to reasonably massive systems, may be misleading. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:16:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-50423 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:16:44Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | American Astronomical Society |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-504232020-05-04T19:30:54Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50423/ Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation Dickinson, Hugh Fortson, Lucy Lintott, Chris Scarlata, Claudia Willett, Kyle Bamford, Steven Beck, Melanie Cardamone, Carolin Galloway, Melanie Simmons, Brooke Keel, William Kruk, Sandor Masters, Karen Vogelsberger, Mark Torrey, Paul Snyder, Gregory F. Modern large-scale cosmological simulations model the universe with increasing sophistication and at higher spatial and temporal resolutions. These ongoing enhancements permit increasingly detailed comparisons between the simulation outputs and real observational data. Recent projects such as Illustris are capable of producing simulated images that are designed to be comparable to those obtained from local surveys. This paper tests the degree to which Illustris achieves this goal across a diverse population of galaxies using visual morphologies derived from Galaxy Zoo citizen scientists. Morphological classifications provided by these volunteers for simulated galaxies are compared with similar data for a compatible sample of images drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Legacy Survey. This paper investigates how simple morphological characterization by human volunteers asked to distinguish smooth from featured systems differs between simulated and real galaxy images. Significant differences are identified, which are most likely due to the limited resolution of the simulation, but which could be revealing real differences in the dynamical evolution of populations of galaxies in the real and model universes. Specifically, for stellar masses, a substantially larger proportion of Illustris galaxies that exhibit disk-like morphology or visible substructure, relative to their SDSS counterparts. Toward higher masses, the visual morphologies for simulated and observed galaxies converge and exhibit similar distributions. The stellar mass threshold indicated by this divergent behavior confirms recent works using parametric measures of morphology from Illustris simulated images. When , the Illustris data set contains substantially fewer galaxies that classifiers regard as unambiguously featured. In combination, these results suggest that comparison between the detailed properties of observed and simulated galaxies, even when limited to reasonably massive systems, may be misleading. American Astronomical Society 2018-02-05 Article PeerReviewed Dickinson, Hugh, Fortson, Lucy, Lintott, Chris, Scarlata, Claudia, Willett, Kyle, Bamford, Steven, Beck, Melanie, Cardamone, Carolin, Galloway, Melanie, Simmons, Brooke, Keel, William, Kruk, Sandor, Masters, Karen, Vogelsberger, Mark, Torrey, Paul and Snyder, Gregory F. (2018) Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation. Astrophysical Journal, 853 (2). 194/1-194/10. ISSN 1538-4357 cosmology: theory; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: fundamental parameters; galaxies: statistics; galaxies: structure http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aaa250/meta doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaa250 doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaa250 |
| spellingShingle | cosmology: theory; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: fundamental parameters; galaxies: statistics; galaxies: structure Dickinson, Hugh Fortson, Lucy Lintott, Chris Scarlata, Claudia Willett, Kyle Bamford, Steven Beck, Melanie Cardamone, Carolin Galloway, Melanie Simmons, Brooke Keel, William Kruk, Sandor Masters, Karen Vogelsberger, Mark Torrey, Paul Snyder, Gregory F. Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation |
| title | Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation |
| title_full | Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation |
| title_fullStr | Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation |
| title_short | Galaxy Zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the Illustris simulation |
| title_sort | galaxy zoo: morphological classification of galaxy images from the illustris simulation |
| topic | cosmology: theory; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: fundamental parameters; galaxies: statistics; galaxies: structure |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50423/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50423/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50423/ |