A Missing Latent, Not a Missing Simulator: Radius-Augmented Inference for Real JWST Retrieval
Read the original on arXiv Machine Learning →The Flow has not summarised this story yet — read it at arXiv Machine Learning.
The Flow has not summarised this story yet — read it at arXiv Machine Learning.
The paper demonstrates that a self‑supervised Vision Transformer (ViT) pretrained on a fast, low‑cost semi‑numerical simulator can produce data summaries that transfer across different simulators without retraining. In 21cm cosmology, the ViT—named SKATR—pretrained on 67,000 21cmFAST lightcones is applied unchanged to hydrodynamical Loreli II lightcones, enabling accurate inference of five astrophysical parameters with fewer radiative‑transfer simulations than a fully‑supervised baseline. SKATR remains accurate, informative, and calibrated even under realistic SKA antenna array noise, outperforming supervised models retrained on noisy data.
arXiv:2606. 00219v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We are witnessing a surge in observations of the cosmic dawn (CD) and epoch of reionisation (EoR), driving an increasing demand for fast and robust theoretical interpretation frameworks.
The study audits the AION-1 foundation model, a 39‑modality transformer trained on over 200 million astronomical objects, and finds that its reliance on a survey detection channel—specifically the segmentation map—introduces a severe systematic bias. By keeping image tokens unchanged and editing only the segmentation map, all model outputs (flux, size, ellipticity, redshift) shift by factors of 110–4400 compared to a placebo, revealing that the model’s predictions are driven more by detection gating than by the actual light distribution. This bias propagates into cosmological analyses, shifting tomographic mean redshifts by a median 0.71 × the LSST DESC requirement and exceeding it in multiple assignments, while removing the detection channel eliminates the effect without measurable cost. whyItMatters":"The bias in the detection channel directly inflates errors in key astronomical measurements, potentially compromising the precision of cosmological studies that rely on accurate redshift estimates."
arXiv:2606. 23766v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The detection and atmospheric characterization of exoplanets have entered a new data-intensive era driven by the James Webb Space Telescope and the upcoming Ariel mission.
arXiv:2509. 23385v5 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Simulation-based inference (SBI) is transforming experimental sciences by enabling parameter estimation in complex non-linear models from simulated data.
arXiv:2606. 18338v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The search for life beyond Earth will depend on detecting faint signatures in the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets.