Nonparametric Statistical Models of Astronomical Systems

摘要

Nonparametric statistical modeling is a useful tool for estimation of the statistical distribution of a property characterizing a population of astronomical objects, when that property is observed only in combination with some other properties of a priori unknown individual values, but of known or estimated distribution. A trivial and well known example is the integral relation between the distributions of true velocities V and their observed radial components VR = V sini, among objects of uniformly distributed but otherwise unknown orientations {e.g., ref. [1]). The technique used to derive this relation can be extended to more complex and interesting such problems in observational astronomy; this is what is meant by the phrase "nonparametric statistical modeling".