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Astrophysics Source Code Library

Making codes discoverable since 1999

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[ascl:9903.001] LENSKY: Galactic Microlensing Probability

Given a model for the Galaxy, this program computes the microlensing rate in any direction. Program features include the ability to include the brightness of the lens and to compute the probability of lens detection at any level of lensing amplification. The program limits itself to lensing by single stars of single sources. The program is currently setup to accept input from the Galactic models of Bahcall and Soniera (1982, 1986).

There are three files needed for LENSKY, the Fortran file lensky.for and two input files: galmod.dsk (15 Megs) and galmod.sph (22 Megs). The zip file available below contains all three files. The program generates output to the file lensky.out. The program is pretty self-explanatory past that.

[ascl:9904.001] BSGMODEL: The Bahcall-Soneira Galaxy Model

BSGMODEL is used to construct the disk and spheroid components of the Galaxy from which the distribution of visible stars and mass in the Galaxy is calculated. The computer files accessible here are available for export use. The modifications are described in comment lines in the software. The Galaxy model software has been installed and used by different people for a large variety of purposes (see, e. g., the the review "Star Counts and Galactic Structure'', Ann. Rev. Astron. Ap. 24, 577, 1986 ).

[ascl:9905.001] CONSKY: A Sky CCD Integration Simulation

This program addresses the question of what resources are needed to produce a continuous data record of the entire sky down to a given limiting visual magnitude. Toward this end, the program simulates a small camera/telescope or group of small camera/telescopes collecting light from a large portion of the sky. From a given stellar density derived from a Bahcall - Soneira Galaxy model, the program first converts star densities at visual magnitudes between 5 and 20 to number of sky pixels needed to monitor each star simultaneously. From pixels, the program converts input CCD parameters to needed telescope attributes, needed data storage space, and the length of time needed to accumulate data of photometric quality for stars of each limiting visual magnitude over the whole sky. The program steps though photometric integrations one second at a time and includes the contribution from a bright background, read noise, dark current, and atmospheric absorption.

[ascl:9905.002] ICOSAHEDRON: A package for pixelizing the sphere

What is the best way to pixelize a sphere? This question occurs in many practical applications, for instance when making maps (of the earth or the celestial sphere) and when doing numerical integrals over the sphere. This package consists of source code and documentation for a method which involves inscribing the sphere in a regular icosahedron and then equalizing the pixel areas.

[ascl:9906.001] SLOPES: Least-squares linear regression lines for bivariate datasets

SLOPES computes six least-squares linear regression lines for bivariate datasets of the form (x_i,y_i) with unknown population distributions. Measurement errors, censoring (nondetections) or other complications are not treated. The lines are: the ordinary least-squares regression of y on x, OLS(Y|X); the inverse regression of x on y, OLS(X_Y); the angular bisector of the OLS lines; the orthogonal regression line; the reduced major axis, and the mean-OLS line. The latter four regressions treat the variables symmetrically, while the first two regressions are asymmetrical. Uncertainties for the regression coefficients of each method are estimated via asymptotic formulae, bootstrap resampling, and bivariate normal simulation. These methods, derivation of the regression coefficient uncertainties, and discussions of their use are provided in three papers listed below. The user is encouraged to read and reference these studies.

[ascl:9906.002] EXTINCT: A computerized model of large-scale visual interstellar extinction

The program EXTINCT.FOR is a FORTRAN subroutine summarizing a three-dimensional visual Galactic extinction model, based on a number of published studies. INPUTS: Galactic latitude (degrees), Galactic longitude (degrees), and source distance (kpc). OUTPUTS (magnitudes): Extinction, extinction error, a statistical correction term, and an array containing extinction and extinction error from each subroutine. The model is useful for correcting visual magnitudes of Galactic sources (particularly in statistical models), and has been used to find Galactic extinction of extragalactic sources. The model's limited angular resolution (subroutine-dependent, but with a minimum resolution of roughly 2 degrees) is necessitated by its ability to describe three-dimensional structure.

[ascl:9909.001] PMCode: Particle-Mesh Code for Cosmological Simulations

Particle-Mesh (PM) codes are still very useful tools for testing predictions of cosmological models in cases when extra high resolution is not very important. We release for public use a cosmological PM N-body code. The code is very fast and simple. We provide a complete package of routines needed to set initial conditions, to run the code, and to analyze the results. The package allows you to simulate models with numerous combinations of parameters: open/flat/closed background, with or without the cosmological constant, different values of the Hubble constant, with or without hot neutrinos, tilted or non-tilted initial spectra, different amount of baryons.

[ascl:9909.002] ANGSIZ: A general and practical method for calculating cosmological distances

The calculation of distances is of fundamental importance in extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. However, no practical implementation for the general case has previously been available. We derive a second-order differential equation for the angular size distance valid not only in all homogeneous Friedmann-Lemaitre cosmological models, parametrised by $lambda_{0}$ and $Omega_{0}$, but also in inhomogeneous 'on-average' Friedmann-Lemaitre models, where the inhomogeneity is given by the (in the general case redshift-dependent) parameter $eta$. Since most other distances can be obtained trivially from the angular size distance, and since the differential equation can be efficiently solved numerically, this offers for the first time a practical method for calculating distances in a large class of cosmological models. We also briefly discuss our numerical implementation, which is publicly available.

[ascl:9909.003] ISIS: A method for optimal image subtraction

ISIS is a complete package to process CCD images using the image Optimal subtraction method (Alard & Lupton 1998, Alard 1999). The ISIS package can find the best kernel solution even in case of kernel variations as a function of position in the image. The relevant computing time is minimal in this case and is only slightly different from finding constant kernel solutions. ISIS includes as well a number of facilities to compute the light curves of variables objects from the subtracted images. The basic routines required to build the reference frame and make the image registration are also provided in the package.

[ascl:9909.004] CMBFAST: A microwave anisotropy code

CMBFAST is the most extensively used code for computing cosmic microwave background anisotropy, polarization and matter power spectra. This package contains cosmological linear perturbation theory code to compute the evolution of various cosmological matter and radiation components, both today and at high redshift. The code has been tested over a wide range of cosmological parameters.

This code is no longer supported; please investigate using CAMB (ascl:1102.026) instead.

[ascl:9909.005] BLOCK: A Bayesian block method to analyze structure in photon counting data

Bayesian Blocks is a time-domain algorithm for detecting localized structures (bursts), revealing pulse shapes, and generally characterizing intensity variations. The input is raw counting data, in any of three forms: time-tagged photon events, binned counts, or time-to-spill data. The output is the most probable segmentation of the observation into time intervals during which the photon arrival rate is perceptibly constant, i.e. has no statistically significant variations. The idea is not that the source is deemed to have this discontinuous, piecewise constant form, rather that such an approximate and generic model is often useful. The analysis is based on Bayesian statistics.

This code is obsolete and yields approximate results; see Bayesian Blocks (ascl:1209.001) instead for an algorithm guaranteeing exact global optimization.

[ascl:9910.001] Cloudy: Numerical simulation of plasmas and their spectra

Cloudy is a large-scale spectral synthesis code designed to simulate fully physical conditions within an astronomical plasma and then predict the emitted spectrum. The code is freely available and is widely used in the analysis and interpretation of emission-line spectra.

[ascl:9910.002] SPECTRUM: A stellar spectral synthesis program

SPECTRUM ((C) Richard O. Gray, 1992-2008) is a stellar spectral synthesis program which runs on a number of platforms, including most flavors of UNIX and LINUX. It will also run under Windwos 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP using the Cygwin tools or the distributed Windows binaries. The code for SPECTRUM has been written in the "C" language. SPECTRUM computes the LTE synthetic spectrum given a stellar atmosphere model. SPECTRUM can use as input the fully blanketed stellar atmosphere models of Robert Kurucz including the new models of Castelli and Kurucz, but any other stellar atmosphere model which can be cast into the format of Kurucz's models can be used as well. SPECTRUM can be programmed with "command-line switches" to give a number of different outputs. In the default mode, SPECTRUM computes the stellar-disk-integrated normalized-intensity spectrum, but in addition, SPECTRUM will compute the absolute monochromatic flux from the stellar atmosphere or the specific intensity from any point on the stellar surface.

[ascl:9910.003] FASTELL: Fast calculation of a family of elliptical mass gravitational lens models

Because of their simplicity, axisymmetric mass distributions are often used to model gravitational lenses. Since galaxies are usually observed to have elliptical light distributions, mass distributions with elliptical density contours offer more general and realistic lens models. They are difficult to use, however, since previous studies have shown that the deflection angle (and magnification) in this case can only be obtained by rather expensive numerical integrations. We present a family of lens models for which the deflection can be calculated to high relative accuracy (10-5) with a greatly reduced numerical effort, for small and large ellipticity alike. This makes it easier to use these distributions for modeling individual lenses as well as for applications requiring larger computing times, such as statistical lensing studies. FASTELL is a code to calculate quickly and accurately the lensing deflection and magnification matrix for the softened power-law elliptical mass distribution (SPEMD) lens galaxy model. The SPEMD consists of a softened power-law radial distribution with elliptical isodensity contours.

[ascl:9910.004] COSMICS: Cosmological initial conditions and microwave anisotropy codes

COSMICS is a package of Fortran programs useful for computing transfer functions and microwave background anisotropy for cosmological models, and for generating gaussian random initial conditions for nonlinear structure formation simulations of such models. Four programs are provided: linger_con and linger_syn integrate the linearized equations of general relativity, matter, and radiation in conformal Newtonian and synchronous gauge, respectively; deltat integrates the photon transfer functions computed by the linger codes to produce photon anisotropy power spectra; and grafic tabulates normalized matter power spectra and produces constrained or unconstrained samples of the matter density field.

[ascl:9910.005] XSPEC: An X-ray spectral fitting package

It has been over a decade since the first paper was published containing results determined using the general X-ray spectral-fitting program XSPEC. Since then XSPEC has become the most widely used program for this purpose, being the de facto standard for the ROSAT and the de jure standard for the ASCA and XTE satellites. Probably the most important features of XSPEC are the large number of theoretical models available and the facilities for adding new models.

[ascl:9910.006] BHSKY: Visual distortions near a black hole

BHSKY (copyright 1999 by Robert J. Nemiroff) computes the visual distortion effects visible to an observer traveling around and descending near a non-rotating black hole. The codes are general relativistically accurate and incorporate concepts such as large-angle deflections, image magnifications, multiple imaging, blue-shifting, and the location of the photon sphere. Once star.dat is edited to define the position and orientation of the observer relative to the black hole, bhsky_table should be run to create a table of photon deflection angles. Next bhsky_image reads this table and recomputes the perceived positions of stars in star.num, the Yale Bright Star Catalog. Lastly, bhsky_camera plots these results. The code currently tracks only the two brightest images of each star, and hence becomes noticeably incomplete within 1.1 times the Schwarzschild radius.

[ascl:9910.007] WINGSPAN: A WINdows Gamma-ray SPectral Analysis program

WINGSPAN is a program written to analyze spectral data from the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. Data files in the FITS (BFITS) format are suitable for input into the program. WINGSPAN can be used to view and manipulate event time histories or count spectra, and also has the capability to perform spectral deconvolution via a standard forward folding model fitting technique (Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm). Although WINGSPAN provides many functions for data manipulation, the program was designed to allow users to easily plug in their own external IDL routines. These external routines have access to all data read from the FITS files, as well as selection intervals created in the main part of WINGSPAN (background intervals and model, etc).

[ascl:9910.008] XSTAR: A program for calculating conditions and spectra of photoionized gases

XSTAR is a command-driven, interactive, computer program for calculating the physical conditions and emission spectra of photoionized gases. It may be applied in a wide variety of astrophysical contexts. Stripped to essentials, its job may be described simply: A spherical gas shell surrounding a central source of ionizing radiation absorbs some of this radiation and reradiates it in other portions of the spectrum; XSTAR computes the effects on the gas of absorbing this energy, and the spectrum of reradiated light. The user supplies the shape and strength of the incident continuum, the elemental abundances in the gas, its density or pressure, and its thickness; the code can be directed to return any of a large number of derived quantities, including (but not limited to) the ionization balance and temperature, opacity tables, and emitted line and continuum fluxes.

[ascl:9910.009] RADPACK: A RADical compression analysis PACKage for fitting to the CMB

The RADPACK package, written in IDL, contains both data and software. The data are the constraints on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) angular power spectrum from all published data as of 9/99. A unique aspect of this compilation is that the non-Gaussianity of the uncertainties has been characterized. The most important program in the package, written in the IDL language, is called chisq.pro and calculates $chi^2$, for an input power spectrum, according to the offset log-normal form of Bond, Jaffe and Knox (astro-ph/9808264). chisq.pro also outputs files that are useful for examining the residuals (the difference between the predictions of the model and the data). There is an sm macro for plotting up the residuals, and a histogram of the residuals. The histogram is actually for the 'whitenend' residuals ---a linear combination of the residuals which leaves them uncorrelated and with unit variance. The expectation is that the whitened residuals will be distributed as a Gaussian with unit variance.

[ascl:9911.001] DUSTY: Radiation transport in a dusty environment

DUSTY solves the problem of radiation transport in a dusty environment. The code can handle both spherical and planar geometries. The user specifies the properties of the radiation source and dusty region, and the code calculates the dust temperature distribution and the radiation field in it. The solution method is based on a self-consistent equation for the radiative energy density, including dust scattering, absorption and emission, and does not introduce any approximations. The solution is exact to within the specified numerical accuracy. DUSTY has built in optical properties for the most common types of astronomical dust and comes with a library for many other grains. It supports various analytical forms for the density distribution, and can perform a full dynamical calculation for radiatively driven winds around AGB stars. The spectral energy distribution of the source can be specified analytically as either Planckian or broken power-law. In addition, arbitrary dust optical properties, density distributions and external radiation can be entered in user supplied files. Furthermore, the wavelength grid can be modified to accommodate spectral features. A single DUSTY run can process an unlimited number of models, with each input set producing a run of optical depths, as specified. The user controls the detail level of the output, which can include both spectral and imaging properties as well as other quantities of interest.

[ascl:9911.002] IRAF: Image Reduction and Analysis Facility

IRAF includes a broad selection of programs for general image processing and graphics, plus a large number of programs for the reduction and analysis of optical and IR astronomy data. Other external or layered packages are available for applications such as data acquisition or handling data from other observatories and wavelength regimes such as the Hubble Space Telescope (optical), EUVE (extreme ultra-violet), or ROSAT and AXAF (X-ray). These external packages are distributed separately from the main IRAF distribution but can be easily installed. The IRAF system also includes a complete programming environment for scientific applications, which includes a programmable Command Language scripting facility, the IMFORT Fortran/C programming interface, and the full SPP/VOS programming environment in which the portable IRAF system and all applications are written.

[ascl:9911.003] AIPS: Astronomical Image Processing System

AIPS ("Classic") is a software package for interactive and batch calibration and editing of astronomical data, typically radio interferometric data. AIPS can be used for the calibration, construction, enhancement, display, and analysis of astronomical images made from data using Fourier synthesis methods. Design and development of the package begin in 1978. AIPS presently consists of over 1,000,000 lines of code and 400,000 lines of documentation, representing over 65 person-years of effort.

[ascl:9911.004] CHIANTI: A database for astrophysical emission line spectroscopy

CHIANTI consists of a critically evaluated set of atomic data necessary to calculate the emission line spectrum of astrophysical plasmas. The data consists of atomic energy levels, atomic radiative data such as wavelengths, weighted oscillator strengths and A values, and electron collisional excitation rates. A set of programs that use these data to calculate the spectrum in a desired wavelength range as a function of temperature and density are also provided. These programs have been written in Interactive Data Language (IDL) and descriptions of these various programs are provided on the website.

[ascl:9912.001] SPH_1D: Hierarchical gravity/SPH treecode for simulations of interacting galaxies

We describe a fast tree algorithm for gravitational N-body simulation on SIMD parallel computers. The tree construction uses fast, parallel sorts. The sorted lists are recursively divided along their x, y and z coordinates. This data structure is a completely balanced tree (i.e., each particle is paired with exactly one other particle) and maintains good spatial locality. An implementation of this tree-building algorithm on a 16k processor Maspar MP-1 performs well and constitutes only a small fraction (approximately 15%) of the entire cycle of finding the accelerations. Each node in the tree is treated as a monopole. The tree search and the summation of accelerations also perform well. During the tree search, node data that is needed from another processor is simply fetched. Roughly 55% of the tree search time is spent in communications between processors. We apply the code to two problems of astrophysical interest. The first is a simulation of the close passage of two gravitationally, interacting, disk galaxies using 65,636 particles. We also simulate the formation of structure in an expanding, model universe using 1,048,576 particles. Our code attains speeds comparable to one head of a Cray Y-MP, so single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) type computers can be used for these simulations. The cost/performance ratio for SIMD machines like the Maspar MP-1 make them an extremely attractive alternative to either vector processors or large multiple instruction, multiple data (MIMD) type parallel computers. With further optimizations (e.g., more careful load balancing), speeds in excess of today's vector processing computers should be possible.

[ascl:9912.002] FTOOLS: A general package of software to manipulate FITS files

FTOOLS, a highly modular collection of utilities for processing and analyzing data in the FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) format, has been developed in support of the HEASARC (High Energy Astrophysics Research Archive Center) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The FTOOLS package contains many utility programs which perform modular tasks on any FITS image or table, as well as higher-level analysis programs designed specifically for data from current and past high energy astrophysics missions. The utility programs for FITS tables are especially rich and powerful, and provide functions for presentation of file contents, extraction of specific rows or columns, appending or merging tables, binning values in a column or selecting subsets of rows based on a boolean expression. Individual FTOOLS programs can easily be chained together in scripts to achieve more complex operations such as the generation and displaying of spectra or light curves. FTOOLS development began in 1991 and has produced the main set of data analysis software for the current ASCA and RXTE space missions and for other archival sets of X-ray and gamma-ray data. The FTOOLS software package is supported on most UNIX platforms and on Windows machines. The user interface is controlled by standard parameter files that are very similar to those used by IRAF. The package is self documenting through a stand alone help task called fhelp. Software is written in ANSI C and FORTRAN to provide portability across most computer systems. The data format dependencies between hardware platforms are isolated through the FITSIO library package.

[ascl:9912.003] RVSAO 2.0: Digital Redshifts and Radial Velocities

RVSAO is a set of programs to obtain redshifts and radial velocities from digital spectra. RVSAO operates in the IRAF (Tody 1986, 1993) environment. The heart of the system is xcsao, which implements the cross-correlation method, and is a direct descendant of the system built by Tonry and Davis (1979). emsao uses intelligent heuristics to search for emission lines in spectra, then fits them to obtain a redshift. sumspec shifts and sums spectra to build templates for cross-correlation. linespec builds synthetic spectra given a list of spectral lines. bcvcorr corrects velocities for the motion of the earth. We discuss in detail the parameters necessary to run xcsao and emsao properly. We discuss the reliability and error associated with xcsao derived redshifts. We develop an internal error estimator, and we show how large, stable surveys can be used to develop more accurate error estimators. We develop a new methodology for building spectral templates for galaxy redshifts. We show how to obtain correlation velocities using emission line templates. Emission line correlations are substantially more efficient than the previous standard technique, automated emission line fitting. We compare the use of RVSAO with new methods, which use Singular Value Decomposition and $chi^2$ fitting techniques.

[ascl:0003.001] GADGET-2: A Code for Cosmological Simulations of Structure Formation

The cosmological simulation code GADGET-2, a new massively parallel TreeSPH code, is capable of following a collisionless fluid with the N-body method, and an ideal gas by means of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). The implementation of SPH manifestly conserves energy and entropy in regions free of dissipation, while allowing for fully adaptive smoothing lengths. Gravitational forces are computed with a hierarchical multipole expansion, which can optionally be applied in the form of a TreePM algorithm, where only short-range forces are computed with the `tree'-method while long-range forces are determined with Fourier techniques. Time integration is based on a quasi-symplectic scheme where long-range and short-range forces can be integrated with different timesteps. Individual and adaptive short-range timesteps may also be employed. The domain decomposition used in the parallelisation algorithm is based on a space-filling curve, resulting in high flexibility and tree force errors that do not depend on the way the domains are cut. The code is efficient in terms of memory consumption and required communication bandwidth. It has been used to compute the first cosmological N-body simulation with more than 10^10 dark matter particles, reaching a homogeneous spatial dynamic range of 10^5 per dimension in a 3D box. It has also been used to carry out very large cosmological SPH simulations that account for radiative cooling and star formation, reaching total particle numbers of more than 250 million. GADGET-2 is publicly released to the research community.

[ascl:0003.002] SAOImage DS9: A utility for displaying astronomical images in the X11 window environment

SAOImage DS9 is an astronomical imaging and data visualization application. DS9 supports FITS images and binary tables, multiple frame buffers, region manipulation, and many scale algorithms and colormaps. It provides for easy communication with external analysis tasks and is highly configurable and extensible via XPA and SAMP. DS9 is a stand-alone application. It requires no installation or support files. Versions of DS9 currently exist for Solaris, Linux, MacOSX, and Windows. All versions and platforms support a consistent set of GUI and functional capabilities. DS9 supports advanced features such as multiple frame buffers, mosaic images, tiling, blinking, geometric markers, colormap manipulation, scaling, arbitrary zoom, rotation, pan, and a variety of coordinate systems. DS9 also supports FTP and HTTP access. The GUI for DS9 is user configurable. GUI elements such as the coordinate display, panner, magnifier, horizontal and vertical graphs, button bar, and colorbar can be configured via menus or the command line. DS9 is a Tk/Tcl application which utilizes the SAOTk widget set. It also incorporates the X Public Access (XPA) mechanism to allow external processes to access and control its data, GUI functions, and algorithms.

[ascl:0008.001] DDSCAT: The discrete dipole approximation for scattering and absorption of light by irregular particles

DDSCAT is a freely available software package which applies the "discrete dipole approximation" (DDA) to calculate scattering and absorption of electromagnetic waves by targets with arbitrary geometries and complex refractive index. The DDA approximates the target by an array of polarizable points. DDSCAT.5a requires that these polarizable points be located on a cubic lattice. DDSCAT allows accurate calculations of electromagnetic scattering from targets with "size parameters" 2 pi a/lambda < 15 provided the refractive index m is not large compared to unity (|m-1| < 1). The DDSCAT package is written in Fortran and is highly portable. The program supports calculations for a variety of target geometries (e.g., ellipsoids, regular tetrahedra, rectangular solids, finite cylinders, hexagonal prisms, etc.). Target materials may be both inhomogeneous and anisotropic. It is straightforward for the user to import arbitrary target geometries into the code, and relatively straightforward to add new target generation capability to the package. DDSCAT automatically calculates total cross sections for absorption and scattering and selected elements of the Mueller scattering intensity matrix for specified orientation of the target relative to the incident wave, and for specified scattering directions. This User Guide explains how to use DDSCAT to carry out EM scattering calculations. CPU and memory requirements are described.

[ascl:0008.002] RATRAN: Radiative Transfer and Molecular Excitation in One and Two Dimensions

RATRAN is a numerical method and computer code to calculate the radiative transfer and excitation of molecular lines. The approach is based on the Monte Carlo method, and incorporates elements from Accelerated Lambda Iteration. It combines the flexibility of the former with the speed and accuracy of the latter. Convergence problems known to plague Monte Carlo methods at large optical depth (>100) are avoided by separating local contributions to the radiation field from the overall transfer problem. The random nature of the Monte Carlo method serves to verify the independence of the solution to the angular, spatial, and frequency sampling of the radiation field. This allows the method to be used in a wide variety of astrophysical problems without specific adaptations. Moreover, the code can be applied to all atoms or molecules for which collisional rate coefficients are available and any axially symmetric source model. Continuum emission and absorption by dust is explicitly taken into account but scattering is neglected. We expect this program to be an important tool in analyzing data from present and future infrared and (sub-)millimeter telescopes.

[ascl:0011.001] StarFinder: A code for stellar field analysis

StarFinder is an IDL code for the deep analysis of stellar fields, designed for Adaptive Optics well-sampled images with high and low Strehl ratio. The Point Spread Function is extracted directly from the frame, to take into account the actual structure of the instrumental response and the atmospheric effects. The code is written in IDL language and organized in the form of a self-contained widget-based application, provided with a series of tools for data visualization and analysis. A description of the method and some applications to Adaptive Optics data are presented.

[ascl:0101.001] MILLISEARCH: A Search for Millilensing in BATSE GRB Data

The millisearch.for code was used to generate a new search for the gravitational lens effects of a significant cosmological density of supermassive compact objects (SCOs) on gamma-ray bursts. No signal attributable to millilensing was found. We inspected the timing data of 774 BATSE-triggered GRBs for evidence of millilensing: repeated peaks similar in light-curve shape and spectra. Our null detection leads us to conclude that, in all candidate universes simulated, OmegaSCO < 0.1 is favored for 105 < MSCO/Modot < 109, while in some universes and mass ranges the density limits are as much as 10 times lower. Therefore, a cosmologically significant population of SCOs near globular cluster mass neither came out of the primordial universe, nor condensed at recombination.

[ascl:0104.001] MLAPM: Simulating Structure Formation from Collisionless Matter

MLAPM simulates structure formation from collisionless matter. The code, written in C, is purely grid-based and uses a recursively refined Cartesian grid to solve Poisson's equation for the potential, rather than obtaining the potential from a Green's function. Refinements can have arbitrary shapes and in practice closely follow the complex morphology of the density field that evolves. The timestep shortens by a factor two with each successive refinement. It is argued that an appropriate choice of softening length is of great importance and that the softening should be at all points an appropriate multiple of the local inter-particle separation. Unlike tree and P3M codes, multigrid codes automatically satisfy this requirement.

[ascl:0104.002] CSENV: A code for the chemistry of CircumStellar ENVelopes

CSENV is a code that computes the chemical abundances for a desired set of species as a function of radius in a stationary, non-clumpy, CircumStellar ENVelope. The chemical species can be atoms, molecules, ions, radicals, molecular ions, and/or their specific quantum states. Collisional ionization or excitation can be incorporated through the proper chemical channels. The chemical species interact with one another and can are subject to photo-processes (dissociation of molecules, radicals, and molecular ions as well as ionization of all species). Cosmic ray ionization can be included. Chemical reaction rates are specified with possible activation temperatures and additional power-law dependences. Photo-absorption cross-sections vs. wavelength, with appropriate thresholds, can be specified for each species, while for H2+ a photoabsorption cross-section is provided as a function of wavelength and temperature. The photons originate from both the star and the external interstellar medium. The chemical species are shielded from the photons by circumstellar dust, by other species and by themselves (self-shielding). Shielding of continuum-absorbing species by these species (self and mutual shielding), line-absorbing species, and dust varies with radial optical depth. The envelope is spherical by default, but can be made bipolar with an opening solid-angle that varies with radius. In the non-spherical case, no provision is made for photons penetrating the envelope from the sides. The envelope is subject to a radial outflow (or wind), constant velocity by default, but the wind velocity can be made to vary with radius. The temperature of the envelope is specified (and thus not computed self-consistently).

[ascl:0202.001] PopRatio: A program to calculate atomic level populations in astrophysical plasmas

PopRatio is a Fortran 90 code to calculate atomic level populations in astrophysical plasmas. The program solves the equations of statistical equilibrium considering all possible bound-bound processes: spontaneous, collisional or radiation induced (the later either directly or by fluorescence). There is no limit on the number of levels or in the number of processes that may be taken into account. The program may find a wide range of applicability in astronomical problems, such as interpreting fine-structure absorption lines or collisionally excited emission lines and also in calculating the cooling rates due to collisional excitation.

[ascl:1004.001] GIM2D: Galaxy IMage 2D

GIM2D (Galaxy IMage 2D) is an IRAF/SPP package written to perform detailed bulge/disk decompositions of low signal-to-noise images of distant galaxies in a fully automated way. GIM2D takes an input image from HST or ground-based telescopes and outputs a galaxy-subtracted image as well as a catalog of structural parameters.

[ascl:1007.001] PINTofALE: Package for Interactive Analysis of Line Emission

PINTofALE was originally developed to analyze spectroscopic data from optically-thin coronal plasmas, though much of the software is sufficiently general to be of use in a much wider range of astrophysical data analyses. It is based on a modular set of IDL tools that interact with an atomic database and with observational data. The tools are designed to allow easy identification of spectral features, measure line fluxes, and carry out detailed modeling. The basic philosophy of the package is to provide access to the innards of atomic line databases, and to have flexible tools to interactively compare with the observed data. It is motivated by the large amount of book-keeping, computation and iterative interaction that is required between the researcher and observational and theoretical data in order to derive astrophysical results. The tools link together transparently and automatically the processes of spectral "browsing", feature identification, measurement, and computation and derivation of results. Unlike standard modeling and fitting engines currently in use, PINTofALE opens up the "black box" of atomic data required for UV/X-ray analyses and allows the user full control over the data that are used in any given analysis.

[ascl:1007.002] INFALL: A code for calculating the mean initial and final density profiles around a virialized dark matter halo

Infall is a code for calculating the mean initial and final density profiles around a virialized dark matter halo. The initial profile is derived from the statistics of the initial Gaussian random field, accounting for the problem of peaks within peaks using the extended Press-Schechter model. Spherical collapse then yields the typical density and velocity profiles of the gas and dark matter that surrounds the final, virialized halo. In additional to the mean profile, ±1-σ profiles are calculated and can be used as an estimate of the scatter.

[ascl:1007.003] GEMINI: A toolkit for analytical models of two-point correlations and inhomogeneous structure formation

Gemini is a toolkit for analytical models of two-point correlations and inhomogeneous structure formation. It extends standard Press-Schechter theory to inhomogeneous situations, allowing a realistic, analytical calculation of halo correlations and bias.

[ascl:1007.004] CMBEASY: An object-oriented code for the cosmic microwave background

CMBEASY is a software package for calculating the evolution of density fluctuations in the universe. Most notably, the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature anisotropies. It features a Markov Chain Monte Carlo driver and many routines to compute likelihoods of any given model. It is based on the CMBFAST package by Uros Seljak and Matias Zaldarriaga.

[ascl:1007.005] Arcetri Spectral Code for Thin Plasmas

The Arcetri spectral code allows to evaluate the spectrum of the radiation emitted by hot and optically thin plasmas in the spectral range 1 - 2000 Angstroms. The database has been updated including atomic data and radiative and collisional rates to calculate level population and line emissivities for a number of ions of the minor elements; a critical compilation of the electron collision excitation for these elements has been performed. The present version of the program includes the CHIANTI database for the most abundant elements, the minor elements data, and Fe III atomic model, radiative and collisional data.

[ascl:1007.006] AMIGA: Adaptive Mesh Investigations of Galaxy Assembly

AMIGA is a publicly available adaptive mesh refinement code for (dissipationless) cosmological simulations. It combines an N-body code with an Eulerian grid-based solver for the full set of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations in order to conduct simulations of dark matter, baryons and magnetic fields in a self-consistent way in a fully cosmological setting. Our numerical scheme includes effective methods to ensure proper capturing of shocks and highly supersonic flows and a divergence-free magnetic field. The high accuracy of the code is demonstrated by a number of numerical tests.

[ascl:1010.001] CFITSIO: A FITS File Subroutine Library

CFITSIO is a library of C and Fortran subroutines for reading and writing data files in FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) data format. CFITSIO provides simple high-level routines for reading and writing FITS files that insulate the programmer from the internal complexities of the FITS format. CFITSIO also provides many advanced features for manipulating and filtering the information in FITS files.

[ascl:1010.002] fpack: FITS Image Compression Program

fpack is a utility program for optimally compressing images in the FITS data format. The associated funpack program will restore the compressed file back to its original state. These programs may be run from the host operating system command line and are analogous to the gzip and gunzip utility programs, except that they are specifically optimized for FITS format images and offer a wider choice of compression options.

fpack uses the tiled image compression convention for storing the compressed images. This convention can in principle support any number of of different compression algorithms; currently GZIP, Rice, Hcompress, and the IRAF pixel list compression algorithms have been implemented.

The main advantages of fpack compared to the commonly used technique of externally compressing the whole FITS file with gzip are:

- It is generally faster and offers better compression than gzip.
- The FITS header keywords remain uncompressed for fast access.
- Each HDU of a multi-extension FITS file is compressed separately, so it is not necessary to uncompress the entire file to read a single image in a multi-extension file.
- Dividing the image into tiles before compression enables faster access to small subsections of the image.
- The compressed image is itself a valid FITS file and can be manipulated by other general FITS utility software.
- Lossy compression can be used for much higher compression in cases where it is not necessary to exactly preserve the original image.
- The CHECKSUM keywords are automatically updated to help verify the integrity of the files.
- Software that supports the tiled image compression technique can directly read and write the FITS images in their compressed form.

[ascl:1010.003] AMBER: Data Reduction Software

AMBER data reduction software has an optional graphic interface in a high level language, allowing the user to control the data reduction step by step or in a completely automatic manner. The software has a robust calibration scheme that make use of the full calibration sets available during the night. The output products are standard OI-FITS files, which can be used directly in high level software like model fitting or image reconstruction tools.

[ascl:1010.004] Needatool: A Needlet Analysis Tool for Cosmological Data Processing

NeedATool (Needlet Analysis Tool) performs data analysis based on needlets, a wavelet rendition powerful for the analysis of fields defined on a sphere. Needlets have been applied successfully to the treatment of astrophysical and cosmological observations, particularly to the analysis of cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. Wavelets have emerged as a useful tool for CMB data analysis, as they combine most of the advantages of both pixel space, where it is easier to deal with partial sky coverage and experimental noise, and the harmonic domain, in which beam treatment and comparison with theoretical predictions are more effective due in large part to their sharp localization.

[ascl:1010.005] Particle module of Piernik MHD code

Piernik is a multi-fluid grid magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code based on the Relaxing Total Variation Diminishing (RTVD) conservative scheme. The original code has been extended by addition of dust described within the particle approximation. The dust is now described as a system of interacting particles. The particles can interact with gas, which is described as a fluid. The comparison between the test problem results and the results coming from fluid simulations made with Piernik code shows the most important differences between fluid and particle approximations used to describe dynamical evolution of dust under astrophysical conditions.

[ascl:1010.006] DSPSR: Digital Signal Processing Software for Pulsar Astronomy

DSPSR, written primarily in C++, is an open-source, object-oriented, digital signal processing software library and application suite for use in radio pulsar astronomy. The library implements an extensive range of modular algorithms for use in coherent dedispersion, filterbank formation, pulse folding, and other tasks. The software is installed and compiled using the standard GNU configure and make system, and is able to read astronomical data in 18 different file formats, including FITS, S2, CPSR, CPSR2, PuMa, PuMa2, WAPP, ASP, and Mark5.

[ascl:1010.007] JAVELIN: Just Another Vehicle for Estimating Lags In Nuclei

JAVELIN (formerly known as SPEAR) is an approach to reverberation mapping that computes the lags between the AGN continuum and emission line light curves and their statistical confidence limits. It uses a damped random walk model to describe the quasar continuum variability and the ansatz that emission line variability is a scaled, smoothed and displaced version of the continuum. While currently configured only to simultaneously fit light curve means, it includes a general linear parameters formalism to fit more complex trends or calibration offsets. The noise matrix can be modified to allow for correlated errors, and the correlation matrix can be modified to use a different stochastic process. The transfer function model is presently a tophat, but this can be altered by changing the line-continuum covariance matrices. It is also able to cope with some problems in traditional reverberation mapping, such as irregular sampling, correlated errors and seasonal gaps.

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