Pulsar candidate recognition with deep learning

Abstract

In this paper, we present a deep learning-based recognition algorithm to identify pulsars by observing data containing millions of candidates including radio frequency interference and noise sources. The dataset is obtained from the High Time Resolution Universe survey created and updated by the Parkes telescope. We investigate several effective single and combined features via simple logistic regression. To deal with the imbalanced dataset, we oversimplify the original dataset at different sampling rates, which is also one of the learning parameters. After training the pre-processed dataset via a convolutional neural network, we provide a cross-validated evaluation of all candidates. Results show that the deep-learning based recognition algorithm can identify the pulsar and radio frequency interference signals with high accuracy. The precision and recall of radio frequency interference are both 100%, and those of pulsars are 91% and 94%, respectively.