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[ascl:1010.008] midIR_sensitivity: Mid-infrared astronomy with METIS

midIR_sensitivity is IDL code that calculates the sensitivity of a ground-based mid-infrared instrument for astronomy. The code was written for the Phase A study of the instrument METIS (http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/metis), the Mid-Infrared E-ELT Imager and Spectrograph, for the 42-m European Extremely Large Telescope. The model uses a detailed set of input parameters for site characteristics and atmospheric profiles, optical design, and thermal background. The code and all input parameters are highly tailored for the particular design parameters of the E-ELT and METIS, however, the program is structured in such a way that the parameters can easily be adjusted for a different system, or alternative input files used.

[ascl:1010.009] ModeCode: Bayesian Parameter Estimation for Inflation

ModeCode is a publicly available code that computes the primordial scalar and tensor power spectra for single field inflationary models. ModeCode solves the inflationary mode equations numerically, avoiding the slow roll approximation. It provides an efficient and robust numerical evaluation of the inflationary perturbation spectrum, and allows the free parameters in the inflationary potential to be estimated within an MCMC computation. ModeCode also allows the estimation of reheating uncertainties once a potential has been specified. It is interfaced with CAMB and CosmoMC to compute cosmic microwave background angular power spectra and perform likelihood analysis and parameter estimation. It can be run as a standalone code as well. Errors in the results from ModeCode contribute negligibly to the error budget for analyses of data from Planck or other next generation experiments.

[ascl:1010.010] Fast WMAP Likelihood Code and GSR PC Functions

We place functional constraints on the shape of the inflaton potential from the cosmic microwave background through a variant of the generalized slow roll approximation that allows large amplitude, rapidly changing deviations from scale-free conditions. Employing a principal component decomposition of the source function G'~3(V'/V)^2 - 2V''/V and keeping only those measured to better than 10% results in 5 nearly independent Gaussian constraints that maybe used to test any single-field inflationary model where such deviations are expected. The first component implies < 3% variations at the 100 Mpc scale. One component shows a 95% CL preference for deviations around the 300 Mpc scale at the ~10% level but the global significance is reduced considering the 5 components examined. This deviation also requires a change in the cold dark matter density which in a flat LCDM model is disfavored by current supernova and Hubble constant data and can be tested with future polarization or high multipole temperature data. Its impact resembles a local running of the tilt from multipoles 30-800 but is only marginally consistent with a constant running beyond this range. For this analysis, we have implemented a ~40x faster WMAP7 likelihood method which we have made publicly available.

[ascl:1010.011] PSpectRe: A Pseudo-Spectral Code for (P)reheating

PSpectRe, written in C++, uses Fourier-space pseudo-spectral methods to evolve interacting scalar fields in an expanding universe. The code is optimized for the analysis of parametric resonance in the post-inflationary universe and provides an alternative to finite differencing codes. PSpectRe has both second- (Velocity-Verlet) and fourth-order (Runge-Kutta) time integrators. In some circumstances PSpectRe obtains reliable results while using substantially fewer points than a finite differencing code by computing the post-resonance equation of state. PSpectRe is designed to be easily extended to other problems in early-universe cosmology, including the generation of gravitational waves during phase transitions and pre-inflationary bubble collisions.

[ascl:1010.012] glafic: Software Package for Analyzing Gravitational Lensing

glafic is a public software package for analyzing gravitational lensing. It offers many features including computations of various lens properties for many mass models, solving the lens equation using an adaptive grid algorithm, simulations of lensed extended images with PSF convolved, and efficient modeling of observed strong lens systems.

[ascl:1010.013] AstroGK: Astrophysical Gyrokinetics Code

The gyrokinetic simulation code AstroGK is developed to study fundamental aspects of kinetic plasmas and for applications mainly to astrophysical problems. AstroGK is an Eulerian slab code that solves the electromagnetic Gyrokinetic-Maxwell equations in five-dimensional phase space, and is derived from the existing gyrokinetics code GS2 by removing magnetic geometry effects. Algorithms used in the code are described. The code is benchmarked using linear and nonlinear problems. Serial and parallel performance scalings are also presented.

[ascl:1010.014] Athena: Grid-based code for astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD)

Athena is a grid-based code for astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). It was developed primarily for studies of the interstellar medium, star formation, and accretion flows. The code has been designed to be easily extensible for use with static and adaptive mesh refinement. It combines higher-order Godunov methods with the constrained transport (CT) technique to enforce the divergence-free constraint on the magnetic field. Discretization is based on cell-centered volume-averages for mass, momentum, and energy, and face-centered area-averages for the magnetic field. Novel features of the algorithm include (1) a consistent framework for computing the time- and edge-averaged electric fields used by CT to evolve the magnetic field from the time- and area-averaged Godunov fluxes, (2) the extension to MHD of spatial reconstruction schemes that involve a dimensionally-split time advance, and (3) the extension to MHD of two different dimensionally-unsplit integration methods. Implementation of the algorithm in both C and Fortran95 is detailed, including strategies for parallelization using domain decomposition. Results from a test suite which includes problems in one-, two-, and three-dimensions for both hydrodynamics and MHD are given, not only to demonstrate the fidelity of the algorithms, but also to enable comparisons to other methods. The source code is freely available for download on the web.

[ascl:1010.015] Fyris Alpha: Computational Fluid Dynamics Code

Fyris Alpha is a high resolution, shock capturing, multi-phase, up-wind Godunov method hydrodynamics code that includes a variable equation of state and optional microphysics such as cooling, gravity and multiple tracer variables. The code has been designed and developed for use primarily in astrophysical applications, such as galactic and interstellar bubbles, hypersonic shocks, and a range of jet phenomena. Fyris Alpha boasts both higher performance and more detailed microphysics than its predecessors, with the aim of producing output that is closer to the observational domain, such as emission line fluxes, and eventually, detailed spectral synthesis. Fyris Alpha is approximately 75,000 lines of C code; it encapsulates the split sweep semi-lagrangian remap PPM method used by ppmlr (in turn developed from VH1, Blondin et al. 1998) but with an improved Riemann solver, which is derived from the exact solver of Gottlieb and Groth (1988), a significantly faster solution than previous solvers. It has a number of optimisations that have improved the speed so that additional calculations neeed for multi-phase simulations become practical.

[ascl:1010.016] SpDust/SpDust.2: Code to Calculate Spinning Dust Spectra

SpDust is an IDL program that evaluates the spinning dust emissivity for user-provided environmental conditions. A new version of the code became available in March, 2010.

[ascl:1010.017] AOFlagger: RFI Software

The radio frequency interference code AOFlagger automatically flags data and can be used to analyze the data in a measurement. The purpose of flagging is to mark samples that are affected by interfering sources such as radio stations, airplanes, electrical fences or other transmitting interferers.

The tools in the package are meant for offline use. The software package contains a graphical interface ("rfigui") that can be used to visualize a measurement set and analyze mitigation techniques. It also contains a console flagger ("rficonsole") that can execute a script of mitigation functions without the overhead of a graphical environment. All tools were written in C++.

The software has been tested extensively on low radio frequencies (150 MHz or lower) produced by the WSRT and LOFAR telescopes. LOFAR is the Low Frequency Array that is built in and around the Netherlands. Higher frequencies should work as well. Some of the methods implemented are the SumThreshold, the VarThreshold and the singular value decomposition (SVD) method. Included also are several surface fitting algorithms.

The software is published under the GNU General Public License version 3.

[ascl:1010.018] Emu CMB: Power spectrum emulator

Emu CMB is a fast emulator the CMB temperature power spectrum based on CAMB (ascl:1102.026, Jan 2010 version). Emu CMB is based on a "space-filling" Orthogonal Array Latin Hypercube design in a de-correlated parameter space obtained by using a fiducial WMAP5 CMB Fisher matrix as a rotation matrix. This design strategy allows for accurate interpolation with small numbers of simulation design points. The emulator presented here is calibrated with 100 CAMB runs that are interpolated over the design space using a global quadratic polynomial fit.

[ascl:1010.019] NBSymple: A Double Parallel, Symplectic N-body Code Running on Graphic Processing Units

NBSymple is a numerical code which numerically integrates the equation of motions of N 'particles' interacting via Newtonian gravitation and move in an external galactic smooth field. The force evaluation on every particle is done by mean of direct summation of the contribution of all the other system's particle, avoiding truncation error. The time integration is done with second-order and sixth-order symplectic schemes. NBSymple has been parallelized twice, by mean of the Computer Unified Device Architecture to make the all-pair force evaluation as fast as possible on high-performance Graphic Processing Units NVIDIA TESLA C 1060, while the O(N) computations are distributed on various CPUs by mean of OpenMP Application Program. The code works both in single precision floating point arithmetics or in double precision. The use of single precision allows the use at best of the GPU performances but, of course, limits the precision of simulation in some critical situations. We find a good compromise in using a software reconstruction of double precision for those variables that are most critical for the overall precision of the code.

[ascl:1010.020] Libpsht: Algorithms for Efficient Spherical Harmonic Transforms

Libpsht (or "library for Performing Spherical Harmonic Transforms") is a collection of algorithms for efficient conversion between spatial-domain and spectral-domain representations of data defined on the sphere. The package supports transforms of scalars as well as spin-1 and spin-2 quantities, and can be used for a wide range of pixelisations (including HEALPix, GLESP and ECP). It will take advantage of hardware features like multiple processor cores and floating-point vector operations, if available. Even without this additional acceleration, the employed algorithms are among the most efficient (in terms of CPU time as well as memory consumption) currently being used in the astronomical community.

The library is written in strictly standard-conforming C90, ensuring portability to many different hard- and software platforms, and allowing straightforward integration with codes written in various programming languages like C, C++, Fortran, Python etc.

Libpsht is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

Development on this project has ended; its successor is libsharp (ascl:1402.033).

[ascl:1010.021] velfit: A Code for Modeling Non-Circular Flows in Disk Galaxies

High-quality velocity maps of galaxies frequently exhibit signatures of non-circular streaming motions. velfit yields results that are more easily interpreted than the commonly used procedure. It can estimate the magnitudes of forced non-circular motions over a broad range of bar strengths from a strongly barred galaxy, through cases of mild bar-like distortions to placing bounds on the shapes of halos in galaxies having extended rotation curves.

This code is no longer maintained and has been superseded by DiskFit (ascl:1209.011).

[ascl:1010.022] GR1D: Open-Source Code for Spherically-Symmetric Stellar Collapse to Neutron Stars and Black Holes

GR1D is based on the Eulerian formulation of GR hydrodynamics (GRHD) put forth by Romero-Ibanez-Gourgoulhon and employs radial-gauge, polar-slicing coordinates in which the 3+1 equations simplify substantially. GR1D is intended for the simulation of stellar collapse to neutron stars and black holes and will also serve as a testbed for modeling technology to be incorporated in multi-D GR codes. Its GRHD part is coupled to various finite-temperature microphysical equations of state in tabulated form that we make available with GR1D.

[ascl:1010.023] AstroSim: Collaborative Visualization of an Astrophysics Simulation in Second Life

AstroSim is a Second Life based prototype application for synchronous collaborative visualization targeted at astronomers.

[ascl:1010.024] ADAPTSMOOTH: A Code for the Adaptive Smoothing of Astronomical Images

ADAPTSMOOTH serves to smooth astronomical images in an adaptive fashion in order to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). The adaptive smoothing scheme allows taking full advantage of the spatially resolved photometric information contained in an image in that at any location the minimal smoothing is applied to reach the requested S/N. Support is given to match more images on the same smoothing length, such that proper estimates of local colors can be done, with a big potential impact on multi-wavelength studies of extended sources (galaxies, nebulae). Different modes to estimate local S/N are provided. In addition to classical arithmetic-mean averaging mode, the code can operate in median averaging mode, resulting in a significant enhancement of the final image quality and very accurate flux conservation.

[ascl:1010.025] SimFast21: Simulation of the Cosmological 21cm Signal

SimFast 21 generates a simulation of the cosmological 21cm signal. While limited to low spatial resolution, the next generation low-frequency radio interferometers that target 21 cm observations during the era of reionization and prior will have instantaneous fields-of-view that are many tens of square degrees on the sky. Predictions related to various statistical measurements of the 21 cm brightness temperature must then be pursued with numerical simulations of reionization with correspondingly large volume box sizes, of order 1000 Mpc on one side. The authors pursued a semi-numerical scheme to simulate the 21 cm signal during and prior to Reionization by extending a hybrid approach where simulations are performed by first laying down the linear dark matter density field, accounting for the non-linear evolution of the density field based on second-order linear perturbation theory as specified by the Zel'dovich approximation, and then specifying the location and mass of collapsed dark matter halos using the excursion-set formalism. The location of ionizing sources and the time evolving distribution of ionization field is also specified using an excursion-set algorithm. They account for the brightness temperature evolution through the coupling between spin and gas temperature due to collisions, radiative coupling in the presence of Lyman-alpha photons and heating of the intergalactic medium, such as due to a background of X-ray photons. The method is capable of producing the required large volume simulations with adequate resolution in a reasonable time so a large number of realizations can be obtained with variations in assumptions related to astrophysics and background cosmology that govern the 21 cm signal.

[ascl:1010.026] SingLe: A F90-package devoted to Softened Gravity in gaseous discs

SofteningLength: Because Newton's law of Gravitation diverges as the relative separations |r'-r| tends to zero, it is common to add a positive constant λ also known as the "softening length", i.e. :

|r'-r|² ← |r'-r|² + λ².

SingLe determines the appropriate value of this Softening Length λ for a given disc local structure (thickness 2h and vertical stratification ρ), in the axially symmetric, flat disc limit, preserving at best the Newtonian character of the gravitational potential and associated forces. Mass density ρ(z) is assumed to be locally expandable in the z-direction according to:

ρ(z)= ρ0[1 + a1(z/h)2+...+aq (z/h)2q+...+aN (z/h)2 N].

[ascl:1010.027] SNANA: A Public Software Package for Supernova Analysis

SNANA is a general analysis package for supernova (SN) light curves that contains a simulation, light curve fitter, and cosmology fitter. The software is designed with the primary goal of using SNe Ia as distance indicators for the determination of cosmological parameters, but it can also be used to study efficiencies for analyses of SN rates, estimate contamination from non-Ia SNe, and optimize future surveys. Several SN models are available within the same software architecture, allowing technical features such as K-corrections to be consistently used among multiple models, and thus making it easier to make detailed comparisons between models. New and improved light-curve models can be easily added. The software works with arbitrary surveys and telescopes and has already been used by several collaborations, leading to more robust and easy-to-use code. This software is not intended as a final product release, but rather it is designed to undergo continual improvements from the community as more is learned about SNe.

[ascl:1010.028] GALPROP: Code for Cosmic-ray Transport and Diffuse Emission Production

GALPROP is a numerical code for calculating the propagation of relativistic charged particles and the diffuse emissions produced during their propagation. The GALPROP code incorporates as much realistic astrophysical input as possible together with latest theoretical developments. The code calculates the propagation of cosmic-ray nuclei, antiprotons, electrons and positrons, and computes diffuse γ-rays and synchrotron emission in the same framework. Each run of the code is governed by a configuration file allowing the user to specify and control many details of the calculation. Thus, each run of the code corresponds to a potentially different "model." The code continues to be developed and is available to the scientific community.

[ascl:1010.029] DNEST: Diffusive Nested Sampling

This code is a general Monte Carlo method based on Nested Sampling (NS) for sampling complex probability distributions and estimating the normalising constant. The method uses one or more particles, which explore a mixture of nested probability distributions, each successive distribution occupying ~e^-1 times the enclosed prior mass of the previous distribution. While NS technically requires independent generation of particles, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) exploration fits naturally into this technique. This method can achieve four times the accuracy of classic MCMC-based Nested Sampling, for the same computational effort; equivalent to a factor of 16 speedup. An additional benefit is that more samples and a more accurate evidence value can be obtained simply by continuing the run for longer, as in standard MCMC.

[ascl:1010.030] CosmicEmu: Cosmic Emulator for the Dark Matter Power Spectrum

Many of the most exciting questions in astrophysics and cosmology, including the majority of observational probes of dark energy, rely on an understanding of the nonlinear regime of structure formation. In order to fully exploit the information available from this regime and to extract cosmological constraints, accurate theoretical predictions are needed. Currently such predictions can only be obtained from costly, precision numerical simulations. The "Coyote Universe'' simulation suite comprises nearly 1,000 N-body simulations at different force and mass resolutions, spanning 38 wCDM cosmologies. This large simulation suite enabled construct of a prediction scheme, or emulator, for the nonlinear matter power spectrum accurate at the percent level out to k~1 h/Mpc. This is the first cosmic emulator for the dark matter power spectrum.

[ascl:1010.031] DimReduce: Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction of Very Large Datasets with Locally Linear Embedding (LLE) and its Variants

DimReduce is a C++ package for performing nonlinear dimensionality reduction of very large datasets with Locally Linear Embedding (LLE) and its variants. DimReduce is built for speed, using the optimized linear algebra packages BLAS, LAPACK (ascl:2104.020), and ARPACK (ascl:1311.010). Because of the need for storing very large matrices (1000 by 10000, for our SDSS LLE work), DimReduce is designed to use binary FITS files as inputs and outputs. This means that using the code is a bit more cumbersome. For smaller-scale LLE, where speed of computation is not as much of an issue, the Modular Data Processing toolkit may be a better choice. It is a python toolkit with some LLE functionality, which VanderPlas contributed.

This code has been rewritten and included in scikit-learn and an improved version is included in http://mmp2.github.io/megaman/

[ascl:1010.032] Extreme Deconvolution: Density Estimation using Gaussian Mixtures in the Presence of Noisy, Heterogeneous and Incomplete Data

Extreme-deconvolution is a general algorithm to infer a d-dimensional distribution function from a set of heterogeneous, noisy observations or samples. It is fast, flexible, and treats the data's individual uncertainties properly, to get the best description possible for the underlying distribution. It performs well over the full range of density estimation, from small data sets with only tens of samples per dimension, to large data sets with hundreds of thousands of data points.

[ascl:1010.033] GALEV Evolutionary Synthesis Models

GALEV evolutionary synthesis models describe the evolution of stellar populations in general, of star clusters as well as of galaxies, both in terms of resolved stellar populations and of integrated light properties over cosmological timescales of > 13 Gyr from the onset of star formation shortly after the Big Bang until today.

For galaxies, GALEV includes a simultaneous treatment of the chemical evolution of the gas and the spectral evolution of the stellar content, allowing for a chemically consistent treatment using input physics (stellar evolutionary tracks, stellar yields and model atmospheres) for a large range of metallicities and consistently account for the increasing initial abundances of successive stellar generations.

[ascl:1010.034] iCosmo: An Interactive Cosmology Package

iCosmo is a software package to perform interactive cosmological calculations for the low redshift universe. The computation of distance measures, the matter power spectrum, and the growth factor is supported for any values of the cosmological parameters. It also performs the computation of observables for several cosmological probes such as weak gravitational lensing, baryon acoustic oscillations and supernovae. The associated errors for these observables can be derived for customised surveys, or for pre-set values corresponding to current or planned instruments. The code also allows for the calculation of cosmological forecasts with Fisher matrices which can be manipulated to combine different surveys and cosmological probes. The code is written in the IDL language and thus benefits from the convenient interactive features and scientific library available in this language. iCosmo can also be used as an engine to perform cosmological calculations in batch mode, and forms a convenient evolutive platform for the development of further cosmological modules. With its extensive documentation, it may also serve as a useful resource for teaching and for newcomers in the field of cosmology.

[ascl:1010.035] SLR: Stellar Locus Regression

Stellar Locus Regression (SLR) is a simple way to calibrate colors at the 1-2% level, and magnitudes at the sub-5% level as limited by 2MASS, without the traditional use of standard stars. With SLR, stars in any field are "standards." This is an entirely new way to calibrate photometry. SLR exploits the simple fact that most stars lie along a well defined line in color-color space called the stellar locus. Cross-match point-sources in flattened images taken through different passbands and plot up all color vs color combinations, and you will see the stellar locus with little effort. SLR calibrates colors by fitting these colors to a standard line. Cross-match with 2MASS on top of that, and SLR will deliver calibrated magnitudes as well.

[ascl:1010.036] Montage: An Astronomical Image Mosaicking Toolkit

Montage is an open source code toolkit for assembling Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) images into custom mosaics. It runs on all common Linux/Unix platforms, on desktops, clusters and computational grids, and supports all World Coordinate System (WCS) projections and common coordinate systems. Montage preserves spatial and calibration fidelity of input images, processes 40 million pixels in up to 32 minutes on 128 nodes on a Linux cluster, and provides independent engines for analyzing the geometry of images on the sky, re-projecting images, rectifying background emission to a common level, and co-adding images. It offers convenient tools for managing and manipulating large image files.

[ascl:1010.037] FastChi: A Fast Chi-squared Technique For Period Search of Irregularly Sampled Data

The Fast Chi-Squared Algorithm is a fast, powerful technique for detecting periodicity. It was developed for analyzing variable stars, but is applicable to many of the other applications where the Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) or other periodograms (such as Lomb-Scargle) are currently used. The Fast Chi-squared technique takes a data set (e.g. the brightness of a star measured at many different times during a series of observations) and finds the periodic function that has the best frequency and shape (to an arbitrary number of harmonics) to fit the data. Among its advantages are:

  • Statistical efficiency: all of the data are used, weighted by their individual error bars, giving a result with a significance calibrated in well-understood Chi-squared statistics.
  • Sensitivity to harmonic content: many conventional techniques look only at the significance (or the amplitude) of the fundamental sinusoid and discard the power of the higher harmonics.
  • Insensitivity to the sample timing: you won't find a period of 24 hours just because you take your observations at night. You do not need to window your data.
  • The frequency search is gridded more tightly than the traditional "integer number of cycles over the span of observations", eliminating power loss from peaks that fall between the grid points.
  • Computational speed: The complexity of the algorithm is O(NlogN), where N is the number of frequencies searched, due to its use of the FFT.

[ascl:1010.038] Low Resolution Spectral Templates For AGNs and Galaxies From 0.03 -- 30 microns

We present a set of low resolution empirical SED templates for AGNs and galaxies in the wavelength range from 0.03 to 30 microns based on the multi-wavelength photometric observations of the NOAO Deep-Wide Field Survey Bootes field and the spectroscopic observations of the AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey. Our training sample is comprised of 14448 galaxies in the redshift range 0<~z<~1 and 5347 likely AGNs in the range 0<~z<~5.58. We use our templates to determine photometric redshifts for galaxies and AGNs. While they are relatively accurate for galaxies, their accuracies for AGNs are a strong function of the luminosity ratio between the AGN and galaxy components. Somewhat surprisingly, the relative luminosities of the AGN and its host are well determined even when the photometric redshift is significantly in error. We also use our templates to study the mid-IR AGN selection criteria developed by Stern et al.(2005) and Lacy et al.(2004). We find that the Stern et al.(2005) criteria suffers from significant incompleteness when there is a strong host galaxy component and at z =~ 4.5, when the broad Halpha emission line is redshifted into the [3.6] band, but that it is little contaminated by low and intermediate redshift galaxies. The Lacy et al.(2004) criterion is not affected by incompleteness at z =~ 4.5 and is somewhat less affected by strong galaxy host components, but is heavily contaminated by low redshift star forming galaxies. Finally, we use our templates to predict the color-color distribution of sources in the upcoming WISE mission and define a color criterion to select AGNs analogous to those developed for IRAC photometry. We estimate that in between 640,000 and 1,700,000 AGNs will be identified by these criteria, but will have serious completeness problems for z >~ 3.4.

[ascl:1010.039] Parameter Estimation from Time-Series Data with Correlated Errors: A Wavelet-Based Method and its Application to Transit Light Curves

We consider the problem of fitting a parametric model to time-series data that are afflicted by correlated noise. The noise is represented by a sum of two stationary Gaussian processes: one that is uncorrelated in time, and another that has a power spectral density varying as $1/f^gamma$. We present an accurate and fast [O(N)] algorithm for parameter estimation based on computing the likelihood in a wavelet basis. The method is illustrated and tested using simulated time-series photometry of exoplanetary transits, with particular attention to estimating the midtransit time. We compare our method to two other methods that have been used in the literature, the time-averaging method and the residual-permutation method. For noise processes that obey our assumptions, the algorithm presented here gives more accurate results for midtransit times and truer estimates of their uncertainties.

[ascl:1010.040] Cosmic String Simulations

Complicated cosmic string loops will fragment until they reach simple, non-intersecting ("stable") configurations. Through extensive numerical study, these attractor loop shapes are characterized including their length, velocity, kink, and cusp distributions. An initial loop containing $M$ harmonic modes will, on average, split into 3M stable loops. These stable loops are approximately described by the degenerate kinky loop, which is planar and rectangular, independently of the number of modes on the initial loop. This is confirmed by an analytic construction of a stable family of perturbed degenerate kinky loops. The average stable loop is also found to have a 40% chance of containing a cusp. This new analytic scheme explicitly solves the string constraint equations.

[ascl:1010.041] FASTLens (FAst STatistics for weak Lensing): Fast Method for Weak Lensing Statistics and Map Making

The analysis of weak lensing data requires to account for missing data such as masking out of bright stars. To date, the majority of lensing analyses uses the two point-statistics of the cosmic shear field. These can either be studied directly using the two-point correlation function, or in Fourier space, using the power spectrum. The two-point correlation function is unbiased by missing data but its direct calculation will soon become a burden with the exponential growth of astronomical data sets. The power spectrum is fast to estimate but a mask correction should be estimated. Other statistics can be used but these are strongly sensitive to missing data. The solution that is proposed by FASTLens is to properly fill-in the gaps with only NlogN operations, leading to a complete weak lensing mass map from which one can compute straight forwardly and with a very good accuracy any kind of statistics like power spectrum or bispectrum.

[ascl:1010.042] WeightMixer: Hybrid Cross-power Spectrum Estimation

This code, which requires HEALPix 2.x (ascl:1107.018), allows you to generate power spectrum estimators from WMAP 5-year maps and generate hybrid cross- and auto- power spectrum and covariance from general foreground-cleaned maps. In addition, it allows you to simulate combined maps or combinations of maps for individual detectors and do MPI spherical transforms of arrays of maps, calculate coupling matrices etc. The code includes all of LensPix (ascl:1102.025), the MPI framework used for doing spherical transforms (based on HealPix).

[ascl:1010.043] FSPS: Flexible Stellar Population Synthesis

FSPS is a flexible SPS package that allows the user to compute simple stellar populations (SSPs) for a range of IMFs and metallicities, and for a variety of assumptions regarding the morphology of the horizontal branch, the blue straggler population, the post--AGB phase, and the location in the HR diagram of the TP-AGB phase. From these SSPs the user may then generate composite stellar populations (CSPs) for a variety of star formation histories (SFHs) and dust attenuation prescriptions. Outputs include the "observed" spectra and magnitudes of the SSPs and CSPs at arbitrary redshift. In addition to these fortran routines, several IDL routines are provided that allow easy manipulation of the output. FSPS was designed with the intention that the user would make full use of the provided fortran routines. However, the full FSPS package is quite large, and requires some time for the user to become familiar with all of the options and syntax. Some users may only need SSPs for a range of metallicities and IMFs. For such users, standard SSP sets for several IMFs, evolutionary tracks, and spectral libraries are available here.

[ascl:1010.044] MAESTRO: An Adaptive Low Mach Number Hydrodynamics Algorithm for Stellar Flows

MAESTRO, a low Mach number stellar hydrodynamics code, simulates long-time, low-speed flows that would be prohibitively expensive to model using traditional compressible codes. MAESTRO is based on an equation set derived using low Mach number asymptotics; this equation set does not explicitly track acoustic waves and thus allows a significant increase in the time step. MAESTRO is suitable for two- and three-dimensional local atmospheric flows as well as three-dimensional full-star flows, and adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) has been incorporated into the code. The expansion of the base state for full-star flows using a novel mapping technique between the one-dimensional base state and the Cartesian grid is also available.

NOTE: MAESTRO is no longer being actively developed. Users should switch to MAESTROeX (ascl:1908.019) to take advantage of the latest capabilities.

[ascl:1010.045] PLUTO: A Code for Flows in Multiple Spatial Dimensions

PLUTO is a modular Godunov-type code intended mainly for astrophysical applications and high Mach number flows in multiple spatial dimensions. The code embeds different hydrodynamic modules and multiple algorithms to solve the equations describing Newtonian, relativistic, MHD, or relativistic MHD fluids in Cartesian or curvilinear coordinates. PLUTO is entirely written in the C programming language and can run on either single processor machines or large parallel clusters through the MPI library. A simple user-interface based on the Python scripting language is available to setup a physical problem in a quick and self-explanatory way. Computations may be carried on either static or adaptive (structured) grids, the latter functionality being provided through the Chombo adaptive mesh refinement library.

[ascl:1010.046] indexf: Line-strength Indices in Fully Calibrated FITS Spectra

This program measures line-strength indices in fully calibrated FITS spectra. By "fully calibrated" one should understand wavelength and relative flux-calibrated data. Note that the different types of line-strength indices that can be measured with indexf (see below) do not require absolute flux calibration. If even a relative flux-calibration is absent (or deficient), the derived indices should be transformed to an appropriate spectrophotometric system. The program can also compute index errors resulting from the propagation of random errors (e.g. photon statistics, read-out noise). This option is only available if the user provides the error spectrum as an additional input FITS file to indexf. The error spectrum must contain the unbiased standard deviation (and not the variance!) for each pixel of the data spectrum. In addition, indexf also estimates the effect of errors on radial velocity. For this purpose, the program performs Monte Carlo simulations by measuring each index using randomly drawn radial velocities (following a Gaussian distribution of a given standard deviation). If no error file is employed, the program can perform numerical simulations with synthetic error spectra, the latter generated from the original data spectra and assuming randomly generated S/N ratios.

[ascl:1010.047] ISW and Weak Lensing Likelihood Code

ISW and Weak Lensing Likelihood code is the likelihood code that calculates the likelihood of Integrated Sachs Wolfe and Weak Lensing of Cosmic Microwave Background using the WMAP 3year CMB maps with mass tracers such as 2MASS (2-Micron All Sky Survey), SDSS LRG (Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxies), SDSS QSOs (Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasars) and NVSS (NRAO VLA All Sky Survey) radio sources. The details of the analysis (*thus the likelihood code) can be understood by reading the papers ISW paper and Weak lensing paper. The code does brute force theoretical matter power spectrum and calculations with CAMB. See the paper for an introduction, descriptions, and typical results from some pre-WMAP data. The code is designed to be integrated into CosmoMC. For further information concerning the integration, see Code Modification for integration into COSMOMC.

[ascl:1010.048] OCTGRAV: Sparse Octree Gravitational N-body Code on Graphics Processing Units

Octgrav is a very fast tree-code which runs on massively parallel Graphical Processing Units (GPU) with NVIDIA CUDA architecture. The algorithms are based on parallel-scan and sort methods. The tree-construction and calculation of multipole moments is carried out on the host CPU, while the force calculation which consists of tree walks and evaluation of interaction list is carried out on the GPU. In this way, a sustained performance of about 100GFLOP/s and data transfer rates of about 50GB/s is achieved. It takes about a second to compute forces on a million particles with an opening angle of $ heta approx 0.5$.

To test the performance and feasibility, we implemented the algorithms in CUDA in the form of a gravitational tree-code which completely runs on the GPU. The tree construction and traverse algorithms are portable to many-core devices which have support for CUDA or OpenCL programming languages. The gravitational tree-code outperforms tuned CPU code during the tree-construction and shows a performance improvement of more than a factor 20 overall, resulting in a processing rate of more than 2.8 million particles per second.

The code has a convenient user interface and is freely available for use.

[ascl:1010.049] Gas-momentum-kinetic SZ cross-correlations

We present a new method for detecting the missing baryons by generating a template for the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. The template is computed from the product of a reconstructed velocity field with a galaxy field. We provide maps of such templates constructed from SDSS Data Release 7 spectroscopic data (SDSS VAGC sample) along side with their expected two point correlation functions with CMB temperature anisotropies. Codes of generating such coefficients of the two point correlation function are also released to provide users of the gas-momentum map a way to change the parameters such as cosmological parameters, reionization history, ionization parameters, etc.

[ascl:1010.050] LensPerfect: Gravitational Lens Massmap Reconstructions Yielding Exact Reproduction of All Multiple Images

LensPerfect is a new approach to the massmap reconstruction of strong gravitational lenses. Conventional methods iterate over possible lens models which reproduce the observed multiple image positions well but not exactly. LensPerfect only produces solutions which fit all of the data exactly. Magnifications and shears of the multiple images can also be perfectly constrained to match observations.

[ascl:1010.051] NEMO: A Stellar Dynamics Toolbox

NEMO is an extendible Stellar Dynamics Toolbox, following an Open-Source Software model. It has various programs to create, integrate, analyze and visualize N-body and SPH like systems, following the pipe and filter architecture. In addition there are various tools to operate on images, tables and orbits, including FITS files to export/import to/from other astronomical data reduction packages. A large growing fraction of NEMO has been contributed by a growing list of authors. The source code consist of a little over 4000 files and a little under 1,000,000 lines of code and documentation, mostly C, and some C++ and Fortran. NEMO development started in 1986 in Princeton (USA) by Barnes, Hut and Teuben. See also ZENO (ascl:1102.027) for the version that Barnes maintains.

[ascl:1010.052] EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code

EAZY, Easy and Accurate Zphot from Yale, determines photometric redshifts. The program is optimized for cases where spectroscopic redshifts are not available, or only available for a biased subset of the galaxies. The code combines features from various existing codes: it can fit linear combinations of templates, it includes optional flux- and redshift-based priors, and its user interface is modeled on the popular HYPERZ (ascl:1108.010) code. The default template set, as well as the default functional forms of the priors, are not based on (usually highly biased) spectroscopic samples, but on semi-analytical models. Furthermore, template mismatch is addressed by a novel rest-frame template error function. This function gives different wavelength regions different weights, and ensures that the formal redshift uncertainties are realistic. A redshift quality parameter, Q_z, provides a robust estimate of the reliability of the photometric redshift estimate.

[ascl:1010.053] Halofitting codes for DGP and Degravitation

We perform N-body simulations of theories with infinite-volume extra dimensions, such as the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) model and its higher-dimensional generalizations, where 4D gravity is mediated by massive gravitons. The longitudinal mode of these gravitons mediates an extra scalar force, which we model as a density-dependent modification to the Poisson equation. This enhances gravitational clustering, particularly on scales that have undergone mild nonlinear processing. While the standard non-linear fitting algorithm of Smith et al. overestimates this power enhancement on non-linear scales, we present a modified fitting formula that offers a remarkably good fit to our power spectra. Due to the uncertainty in galaxy bias, our results are consistent with precision power spectrum determinations from galaxy redshift surveys, even for graviton Compton wavelengths as small as 300 Mpc. Our model is sufficiently general that we expect it to capture the phenomenology of a wide class of related higher-dimensional gravity scenarios.

[ascl:1010.054] MagnetiCS.c: Cosmic String Loop Evolution and Magnetogenesis

Large-scale coherent magnetic fields are observed in galaxies and clusters, but their ultimate origin remains a mystery. We reconsider the prospects for primordial magnetogenesis by a cosmic string network. We show that the magnetic flux produced by long strings has been overestimated in the past, and give improved estimates. We also compute the fields created by the loop population, and find that it gives the dominant contribution to the total magnetic field strength on present-day galactic scales. We present numerical results obtained by evolving semi-analytic models of string networks (including both one-scale and velocity-dependent one-scale models) in a Lambda-CDM cosmology, including the forces and torques on loops from Hubble redshifting, dynamical friction, and gravitational wave emission. Our predictions include the magnetic field strength as a function of correlation length, as well as the volume covered by magnetic fields. We conclude that string networks could account for magnetic fields on galactic scales, but only if coupled with an efficient dynamo amplification mechanism.

[ascl:1010.055] SYNOW: A Highly Parameterized Spectrum Synthesis Code for Direct Analysis of SN Spectra

SYNOW is a highly parameterized spectrum synthesis code used primarily for direct (empirical) analysis of SN spectra. The code is based on simple assumptions : spherical symmetry; homologous expansion; a sharp photosphere that emits a blackbody continuous spectrum; and line formation by resonance scattering, treated in the Sobolev approximation. Synow does not do continuum transport, it does not solve rate equations, and it does not calculate ionization ratios. Its main function is to take line multiple scattering into account so that it can be used in an empirical spirit to make line identifications and estimate the velocity at the photosphere (or pseudo-photosphere) and the velocity interval within which each ion is detected. these quantities provide constraints on the composition structure of the ejected matter.

[ascl:1010.056] PHOENIX: A General-purpose State-of-the-art Stellar and Planetary Atmosphere Code

PHOENIX is a general-purpose state-of-the-art stellar and planetary atmosphere code. It can calculate atmospheres and spectra of stars all across the HR-diagram including main sequence stars, giants, white dwarfs, stars with winds, TTauri stars, novae, supernovae, brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets.

[ascl:1010.057] Tiny Tim: Simulated Hubble Space Telescope PSFs

Tiny Tim generates simulated Hubble Space Telescope point spread functions (PSFs). It is written in C and distributed as source code and runs on a wide variety of UNIX and VMS systems. Tiny Tim includes mirror zonal errors, time dependent aberrations (for the pre-repair instruments), field dependent obscuration patterns (for WF/PC-1 and WFPC2), and filter passband effects. It can produce a normally sampled or subsampled PSF. Output is a FITS image file.

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