Membership in star clusters using Machine Learning

Autor: Priya Hasan
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5566360
Popis: Membership of stars in open clusters is one of the most crucial parameters in studies of star clusters. Gaia opened a new window in the estimation of membership because of its unprecedented 6-D data. In the present study, we used published membership data of nine open star clusters as a training set to find new members from Gaia DR2 data using a supervised random forest model with a precision of around 90\%. The number of new members found is often double the published number. Membership probability of a larger sample of stars in clusters is a major benefit in determination of cluster parameters like distance, extinction and mass functions. We also found members in the outer regions of the cluster and found sub-structures in the clusters studied. The color magnitude diagrams are more populated and enriched by the addition of new members making their study more promising. We compared this to unsupervised techniques using Gaussian Mixture Modelling to discuss the various caveats .
Databáze: OpenAIRE