Strong lens systems search in the Dark Energy Survey using Convolutional Neural Networks

Understand

We performed a search for strong lens galaxy-scale systems in the first data release of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), from a color-selected parent sample of 18~745~029 Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs).

• Our search was based on a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to grade our LRG selection with values between 0 (non-lens) and 1 (lens).
• Our training set was data-driven, i.e.
• using lensed sources taken from HST COSMOS images and where the light distribution of the lens plane was taken directly from DES images of our LRGs.