# Photometric classification and redshift estimation of LSST Supernovae

## TL;DR

This paper presents a photometric classification and redshift estimation method for LSST supernovae using machine learning and light curve fitting, achieving high accuracy and enabling cosmological studies.

## Contribution

It introduces a Random Forest classifier for supernova typing and a SALT2-based light curve fitting approach for photometric redshift estimation, optimized for LSST data.

## Key findings

- Achieved an AUC of 0.98 for supernova classification.
- Obtained photometric redshifts with a bias of 0.012 and scatter of 0.0294 without host-galaxy priors.
- Estimated cosmological parameters with minimal statistical error.

## Abstract

Supernova (SN) classification and redshift estimation using photometric data only have become very important for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), given the large number of SNe that LSST will observe and the impossibility of spectroscopically following up all the SNe. We investigate the performance of a SN classifier that uses SN colors to classify LSST SNe with the Random Forest classification algorithm. Our classifier results in an AUC of 0.98 which represents excellent classification. We are able to obtain a photometric SN sample containing 99$\%$ SNe Ia by choosing a probability threshold. We estimate the photometric redshifts (photo-z) of SNe in our sample by fitting the SN light curves using the SALT2 model with nested sampling. We obtain a mean bias ($\left<z_\mathrm{phot}-z_\mathrm{spec}\right>$) of 0.012 with $\sigma\left( \frac{z_\mathrm{phot}-z_\mathrm{spec}}{1+z_\mathrm{spec}}\right) = 0.0294$ without using a host-galaxy photo-z prior, and a mean bias ($\left<z_\mathrm{phot}-z_\mathrm{spec}\right>$) of 0.0017 with $\sigma\left( \frac{z_\mathrm{phot}-z_\mathrm{spec}}{1+z_\mathrm{spec}}\right) = 0.0116$ using a host-galaxy photo-z prior. Assuming a flat $\Lambda CDM$ model with $\Omega_m=0.3$, we obtain $\Omega_m$ of $0.305\pm0.008$ (statistical errors only), using the simulated LSST sample of photometric SNe Ia (with intrinsic scatter $\sigma_\mathrm{int}=0.11$) derived using our methodology without using host-galaxy photo-z prior. Our method will help boost the power of SNe from the LSST as cosmological probes.