arXiv:2504. 06176v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Foundation Models, which leverage large neural networks pre-trained on unlabelled data before fine-tuning for specific tasks, are increasingly being applied to specialised domains.
By Ian Groves, Andrew Campbell, James Fernandes, Diego Ram\'irez Rodr\'iguez, Paul Murray, Massimiliano Vasile, Victoria Nockles
arXiv:2606. 02778v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: I present EXOVEIL, a transit detection system that learns what a star's brightness should look like and flags when reality disagrees.
By Pratik Priyanshu
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."
By Ihor Kendiukhov
DELOS is a deep‑learning framework that uses contrastive scoring to perform blind searches for shallow transits in Kepler photometry. It combines GPU‑accelerated phase folding, optimized phase binning, and a custom one‑dimensional convolutional encoder to produce a transit‑likeness score periodogram without relying on pre‑detected events. In tests on synthetic data and controlled injection‑recovery experiments, DELOS outperforms traditional methods (BLS and TLS) in precision‑recall and speed, and successfully recovers all known shallow intermediate‑to‑long‑period transit signals in a selected Kepler sample.
By Qingtian Liu, Jian Ge, XingChen Yan, Kevin Willis, Xinyu Yao, QuanQuan Hu, Jiapeng Zhu
arXiv:2607. 00228v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Modern time-domain surveys such as the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) generate hundreds of thousands of alerts each night, making real-time decisions for follow-up observations a central challenge in time-domain astronomy.
By Ved G. Shah, Nabeel Rehemtulla, Adam A. Miller, Sushant Sharma Chaudhary, Michael W. Coughlin, Antoine Le Calloch, Matthew J. Graham, Joahan Castaneda Jaimes, Theophile Jegou du Laz, Ashish A. Mahabal, Frank J. Masci, Josiah Purdum, Reed Riddle, Jesper Sollerman, Anastasia Wei, Mansi M. Kasliwal
arXiv:2606. 05103v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman), set for launch as early as September 2026, will conduct wide-field infrared imaging surveys with unprecedented spatial resolution and cadence, enabling the discovery of millions of astronomical transients.
By Karan Gandhi, Ashish A. Mahabal, Jacob E. Jencson, Russ R. Laher, Ben Rusholme, Lin Yan, Ryan M. Lau, Schuyler D. Van Dyk, Mansi M. Kasliwal