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V. V. Krushinsky

Publications and source records attributed to V. V. Krushinsky.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Anomaly detection in Fink. I. Discovery, follow-up, and classification of unusual sources

Modern wide-field time-domain surveys produce alert streams whose scientific potential is often concentrated in rare and unusual events. Efficient discovery therefore requires automated pipelines to be combined with rapid expert validation and follow-up. We present the first-year performance of the anomaly-detection (AD) pipeline operating within the Fink broker on the Zwicky Transient Facility alert stream, and assess its ability to identify scientifically valid outliers and enable discovery of rare phenomena. The pipeline transforms ZTF light curves into a compact set of features and ranks alerts using an Isolation Forest model trained on archival ZTF data. Each night, the 10 most anomalous candidates are distributed to experts via Slack/Telegram and exposed through an API. We also implement an expert-feedback loop using a public Telegram bot and retrain the model using the Active Anomaly Discovery algorithm. During the first year of operations (starting from 25 January 2023), the AD pipeline identified multiple high-interest sources and triggered dedicated photometric and spectroscopic follow-up. We report the discovery and multi-instrument (11-m SALT telescope, 2.5-m CMO telescope, 0.6-m ASA RC600, 0.25-m FRAM-ORM) follow-up of the rare AM CVn system Fink J062452.88+020818.3 of the WZ Sge type, UX Ori-type star Fink J222324.32+744222.0 and the unusual transient with precursor SN 2023mtp. In addition, the module triggered 33 supernovae, including 30 previously unreported ones, with candidates for superluminous and hostless events. Furthermore, nine new dwarf novae were discovered. These results show that broker-level anomaly detection, coupled with rapid dissemination, expert assessment, and follow-up observations, provide an effective bridge between large-scale survey streams and domain expertise, turning anomaly scores into astrophysical insights and concrete discoveries.

astro-ph.HE

SNAD catalogue of M-dwarf flares from the Zwicky Transient Facility

Most of the stars in the Universe are M spectral class dwarfs, which are known to be the source of bright and frequent stellar flares. In this paper, we propose new approaches to discover M-dwarf flares in ground-based photometric surveys. We employ two approaches: a modification of a traditional method of parametric fit search and a machine learning algorithm based on active anomaly detection. The algorithms are applied to Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) data release 8, which includes the data from the ZTF high-cadence survey, allowing us to reveal flares lasting from minutes to hours. We analyze over 35 million ZTF light curves and visually scrutinize 1168 candidates suggested by the algorithms to filter out artifacts, occultations of a star by an asteroid, and other types of known variable objects. The result of this analysis is the largest catalogue of ZTF flaring stars to date, representing 134 flares with amplitudes ranging from -0.2 to -4.6 magnitudes, including repeated flares. Using Pan-STARRS DR2 colors, we assign a spectral subclass to each object in the sample. For 13 flares with well-sampled light curves and available geometric distances from Gaia DR3, we estimate the bolometric energy. This research shows that the proposed methods combined with the ZTF's cadence strategy are suitable for identifying M-dwarf flares and other fast transients, allowing for the extraction of significant astrophysical information from their light curves.

astro-ph.SR

Discovery of a young low-mass brown dwarf transiting a fast-rotating F-type star by the Galactic Plane eXoplanet (GPX) survey

We announce the discovery of GPX-1 b, a transiting brown dwarf with a mass of $19.7\pm 1.6$ $M_{\mathrm{Jup}}$ and a radius of $1.47\pm0.10$ $R_{\mathrm{Jup}}$, the first sub-stellar object discovered by the Galactic Plane eXoplanet (GPX) survey. The brown dwarf transits a moderately bright ($V$ = 12.3 mag) fast-rotating F-type star with a projected rotational velocity $v\sin{ i_*}=40\pm10$ km/s. We use the isochrone placement algorithm to characterize the host star, which has effective temperature $7000\pm200$ K, mass $1.68\pm0.10$ $M_{\mathrm{Sun}}$, radius $1.56\pm0.10$ $R_{\mathrm{Sun}}$ and approximate age $0.27_{-0.15}^{+0.09}$ Gyr. GPX-1 b has an orbital period of $\sim$1.75 d, and a transit depth of $0.90\pm0.03$ %. We describe the GPX transit detection observations, subsequent photometric and speckle-interferometric follow-up observations, and SOPHIE spectroscopic measurements, which allowed us to establish the presence of a sub-stellar object around the host star. GPX-1 was observed at 30-min integrations by TESS in Sector 18, but the data is affected by blending with a 3.4 mag brighter star 42 arcsec away. GPX-1 b is one of about two dozen transiting brown dwarfs known to date, with a mass close to the theoretical brown dwarf/gas giant planet mass transition boundary. Since GPX-1 is a moderately bright and fast-rotating star, it can be followed-up by the means of Doppler tomography.

astro-ph.SR

Anomaly detection in the Zwicky Transient Facility DR3

We present results from applying the SNAD anomaly detection pipeline to the third public data release of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF DR3). The pipeline is composed of 3 stages: feature extraction, search of outliers with machine learning algorithms and anomaly identification with followup by human experts. Our analysis concentrates in three ZTF fields, comprising more than 2.25 million objects. A set of 4 automatic learning algorithms was used to identify 277 outliers, which were subsequently scrutinised by an expert. From these, 188 (68%) were found to be bogus light curves -- including effects from the image subtraction pipeline as well as overlapping between a star and a known asteroid, 66 (24%) were previously reported sources whereas 23 (8%) correspond to non-catalogued objects, with the two latter cases of potential scientific interest (e. g. 1 spectroscopically confirmed RS Canum Venaticorum star, 4 supernovae candidates, 1 red dwarf flare). Moreover, using results from the expert analysis, we were able to identify a simple bi-dimensional relation which can be used to aid filtering potentially bogus light curves in future studies. We provide a complete list of objects with potential scientific application so they can be further scrutinised by the community. These results confirm the importance of combining automatic machine learning algorithms with domain knowledge in the construction of recommendation systems for astronomy. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/snad-space/zwad

astro-ph.IM

Optical polarization observations with the MASTER robotic net

We present results of optical polarization observations performed with the MASTER robotic net for three types of objects: gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and blazars. For the Swift gamma-ray bursts GRB100906A, GRB110422A, GRB121011A, polarization observations were obtained during very early stages of optical emission. For GRB100906A it was the first prompt optical polarization observation in the world. Photometry in polarizers is presented for Type Ia Supernova 2012bh during 20 days, starting on March 27, 2012. We find that the linear polarization of SN 2012bh at the early stage of the envelope expansion was less than 3%. Polarization measurements for the blazars OC 457, 3C 454.3, QSO B1215+303, 87GB 165943.2+395846 at single nights are presented. We infer the degree of the linear polarization and polarization angle. The blazars OC 457 and 3C 454.3 were observed during their periods of activity. The results show that MASTER is able to measure substantially polarized light; at the same time it is not suitable for determining weak polarization (less than 5%) of dim objects (fainter than 16$^m$). Polarimetric observations of the optical emission from gamma-ray bursts and supernovae are necessary to investigate the nature of these transient objects.

astro-ph.HE

New variable stars in the field of open cluster NGC188

A photometric study of variable stars in the field of old open cluster NGC 188 is discussed. Observations were carried out in two bands R and I for 5513 stars up to R = 17 mag in the field of 1.5 x 1.5 grad. around the cluster. The photometric data were processed by the console application "Astrokit", which corrects brightness variations associated with the variability of atmospheric transparency and carries out searching for variable stars. We found 18 new variable stars and determined the parameters of one previously known variable. Among discovered stars one is a low-amplitude pulsating variable, one is a EW eclipsing binary, six are eclipsing variables of EA type, five objects are long period variables, and for five stars variability type remains uncertain.

astro-ph.SR