search and characterization

I had a wide-ranging conversation with Ana Bonaca (Harvard) about many things. One thing we discussed is the relationship between what astronomers call search and what astronomers call characterization. We were talking about this in the context of asteroseismology signals. But it is there for exoplanet searches, binary-star searches, and even the Higgs boson. There are certain respects in which search and characterization are very similar: Most search methods involve parameter estimation over some grid of models (periods and phases, say, estimating amplitudes, or masses, estimating coupling parameters). But there are certain respects in which they are very different too: Search involves harsh approximations and cheats for performance; characterization involves high-quality inference with baroque models. Anyway, it is interesting to think about these worlds and ideas and how much astronomy has changed since I was a wee astronomer.