Master Thesis defense by Thomas Georges Alphonse Ravinet

Title: AutoMUSE : Autonomous MUSE Source Extractor

Automatic detection and extraction of MUSE spectra

Abstract:

The quantity and quality of data within astronomical archives are growing. With large-scale surveys of the night sky, new tools must be developed in order to process an unprecedented amount of information, in a standardized way.

Additionally, recent tools, called Integral Field Spectrographs, gather spectra from an entire field of the sky. Searching for astronomical sources in the 3-dimensional (Right Ascension, Declination, and wavelength) images they produce can be difficult. Using IFS, 3D pictures of specific objects can be taken, without analyzing other sources in the image, such as in the background or on the edges.

In this Master of Sciences thesis defense, we will discuss the functioning of a tool, AutoMUSE (Autonomous MUSE Source Extractor), dedicated to produce spectra, catalogs and images in a standardized way from Integral Field Units images.  AutoMUSE is dedicated to the analysis of MUSE instrument products, but should in principle work on other IFS datacubes.
After a description of the source images we are interested in, we will describe the functioning of our software, and of the mechanisms behind it. We apply it to different fields, and show results form that analysis. Additionally, we worked on attempts of automatic classification of spectra, and describe our reasoning.

Supervisor
Lise Bech Christensen, Niels Bohr Insitute, DAWN

Supervisor
Adriano Agnello, Niels Bohr Insitute, DARK

Censor
Jérôme Chenevez, DTU Space