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.
Relativistic radiative transfer problems require the calculation of photon trajectories in curved spacetime. Programmed in Fortran, Geokerr uses a novel technique for rapid and accurate calculation of null geodesics in the Kerr metric. The equations of motion from the Hamilton-Jacobi equation are reduced directly to Carlson's elliptic integrals, simplifying algebraic manipulations and allowing all coordinates to be computed semi-analytically for the first time.
FARGO is an efficient and simple modification of the standard transport algorithm used in explicit eulerian fixed polar grid codes, aimed at getting rid of the average azimuthal velocity when applying the Courant condition. This results in a much larger timestep than the usual procedure, and it is particularly well-suited to the description of a Keplerian disk where one is traditionally limited by the very demanding Courant condition on the fast orbital motion at the inner boundary. In this modified algorithm, the timestep is limited by the perturbed velocity and by the shear arising from the differential rotation. The speed-up resulting from the use of the FARGO algorithm is problem dependent. In the example presented in the code paper below, which shows the evolution of a Jupiter sized protoplanet embedded in a minimum mass protoplanetary nebula, the FARGO algorithm is about an order of magnitude faster than a traditional transport scheme, with a much smaller numerical diffusivity.
OrbFit is a software system allowing one to compute the orbits of asteroids starting from the observations, to propagate these orbits, and to compute predictions on the future (and past) position on the celestial sphere. It is a tool to be used to find a well known asteroid, to recover a lost one, to attribute a small group of observations, to identify two orbits with each other, to study the future (and/or past) close approaches to Earth, thus to assess the risk of an impact, and more.
We have developed a detailed stellar evolution code capable of following the simultaneous evolution of both stars in a binary system, together with their orbital properties. To demonstrate the capabilities of the code we investigate potential progenitors for the Type IIb supernova 1993J, which is believed to have been an interacting binary system prior to its primary exploding. We use our detailed binary stellar evolution code to model this system to determine the possible range of primary and secondary masses that could have produced the observed characteristics of this system, with particular reference to the secondary. Using the luminosities and temperatures for both stars (as determined by Maund et al. 2004) and the remaining mass of the hydrogen envelope of the primary at the time of explosion, we find that if mass transfer is 100 per cent efficient the observations can be reproduced by a system consisting of a 15 solar mass primary and a 14 solar mass secondary in an orbit with an initial period of 2100 days. With a mass transfer efficiency of 50 per cent, a more massive system consisting of a 17 solar mass primary and a 16 solar mass secondary in an initial orbit of 2360 days is needed. We also investigate some of the uncertainties in the evolution, including the effects of tidal interaction, convective overshooting and thermohaline mixing.
SHELLSPEC calculates lightcurves, spectra and images of interacting binaries and extrasolar planets immersed in a moving circumstellar environment which is optically thin. It solves simple radiative transfer along the line of sight in moving media. The assumptions include LTE and optional known state quantities and velocity fields in 3D. Optional (non)transparent objects such as a spot, disc, stream, jet, shell or stars as well as an empty space may be defined (embedded) in 3D and their composite synthetic spectrum calculated. Roche model can be used as a boundary condition for the radiative tranfer. A related code based on SHELLSPEC, Pyshellspec (ascl:2106.006), solves the inverse problem of finding the stellar and orbital parameters.
Glnemo2 is an interactive 3D visualization program developed in C++ using the OpenGL library and Nokia QT 4.X API. It displays in 3D the particles positions of the different components of an nbody snapshot. It quickly gives a lot of information about the data (shape, density area, formation of structures such as spirals, bars, or peanuts). It allows for in/out zooms, rotations, changes of scale, translations, selection of different groups of particles and plots in different blending colors. It can color particles according to their density or temperature, play with the density threshold, trace orbits, display different time steps, take automatic screenshots to make movies, select particles using the mouse, and fly over a simulation using a given camera path. All these features are accessible from a very intuitive graphic user interface.
Glnemo2 supports a wide range of input file formats (Nemo, Gadget 1 and 2, phiGrape, Ramses, list of files, realtime gyrfalcON simulation) which are automatically detected at loading time without user intervention. Glnemo2 uses a plugin mechanism to load the data, so that it is easy to add a new file reader. It's powered by a 3D engine which uses the latest OpenGL technology, such as shaders (glsl), vertex buffer object, frame buffer object, and takes in account the power of the graphic card used in order to accelerate the rendering. With a fast GPU, millions of particles can be rendered in real time. Glnemo2 runs on Linux, Windows (using minGW compiler), and MaxOSX, thanks to the QT4API.
MESS is a Monte Carlo simulation IDL code which uses either the results of the statistical analysis of the properties of discovered planets, or the results of the planet formation theories, to build synthetic planet populations fully described in terms of frequency, orbital elements and physical properties. They can then be used to either test the consistency of their properties with the observed population of planets given different detection techniques or to actually predict the expected number of planets for future surveys. It can be used to probe the physical and orbital properties of a putative companion within the circumstellar disk of a given star and to test constrain the orbital distribution properties of a potential planet population around the members of the TW Hydrae association. Finally, using in its predictive mode, the synergy of future space and ground-based telescopes instrumentation has been investigated to identify the mass-period parameter space that will be probed in future surveys for giant and rocky planets. A Python version of this code, Exo-DMC (ascl:2010.008), is available.
PyEphem provides scientific-grade astronomical computations for the Python programming language. Given a date and location on the Earth’s surface, it can compute the positions of the Sun and Moon, of the planets and their moons, and of any asteroids, comets, or earth satellites whose orbital elements the user can provide. Additional functions are provided to compute the angular separation between two objects in the sky, to determine the constellation in which an object lies, and to find the times at which an object rises, transits, and sets on a particular day.
The numerical routines that lie behind PyEphem are those from the XEphem astronomy application (ascl:1112.013), whose author, Elwood Downey, generously gave permission for us to use them as the basis for PyEphem.
PREDICT is an open-source, multi-user satellite tracking and orbital prediction program written under the Linux operating system. PREDICT provides real-time satellite tracking and orbital prediction information to users and client applications through:
Mercury is a new general-purpose software package for carrying out orbital integrations for problems in solar-system dynamics. Suitable applications include studying the long-term stability of the planetary system, investigating the orbital evolution of comets, asteroids or meteoroids, and simulating planetary accretion. Mercury is designed to be versatile and easy to use, accepting initial conditions in either Cartesian coordinates or Keplerian elements in "cometary" or "asteroidal" format, with different epochs of osculation for different objects. Output from an integration consists of osculating elements, written in a machine-independent compressed format, which allows the results of a calculation performed on one platform to be transferred (e.g. via FTP) and decoded on another.
During an integration, Mercury monitors and records details of close encounters, sungrazing events, ejections and collisions between objects. The effects of non-gravitational forces on comets can also be modeled. The package supports integrations using a mixed-variable symplectic routine, the Bulirsch-Stoer method, and a hybrid code for planetary accretion calculations.
ExoFit is a freely available software package for estimating orbital parameters of extra-solar planets. ExoFit can search for either one or two planets and employs a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to fit a Keplerian radial velocity curve onto the radial velocity data.
GYOTO, a general relativistic ray-tracing code, aims at computing images of astronomical bodies in the vicinity of compact objects, as well as trajectories of massive bodies in relativistic environments. This code is capable of integrating the null and timelike geodesic equations not only in the Kerr metric, but also in any metric computed numerically within the 3+1 formalism of general relativity. Simulated images and spectra have been computed for a variety of astronomical targets, such as a moving star or a toroidal accretion structure. The underlying code is open source and freely available. It is user-friendly, quickly handled and very modular so that extensions are easy to integrate. Custom analytical metrics and astronomical targets can be implemented in C++ plug-in extensions independent from the main code.
ORSA is an interactive tool for scientific grade Celestial Mechanics computations. Asteroids, comets, artificial satellites, solar and extra-solar planetary systems can be accurately reproduced, simulated, and analyzed. The software uses JPL ephemeris files for accurate planets positions and has a Qt-based graphical user interface. It offers an advanced 2D plotting tool and 3D OpenGL viewer and the standalone numerical library liborsa and can import asteroids and comets from all the known databases (MPC, JPL, Lowell, AstDyS, and NEODyS). In addition, it has an integrated download tool to update databases.
The ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator makes it possible to process and edit astronomical science data in the FITS format to produce stunning images of the universe. Formerly a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, the current version of FITS Liberator is a stand-alone application and no longer requires Photoshop. This image processing software makes it possible to create color images using raw observations from a range of telescopes; the FITS Liberator continues to support the FITS and PDS formats, preferred by astronomers and planetary scientists respectively, which enables data to be processed from a wide range of telescopes and planetary probes, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, ESA’s XMM–Newton Telescope and Cassini–Huygens or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
bhint is a post-Newtonian, high-precision integrator for stellar systems surrounding a super-massive black hole. The algorithm makes use of the fact that the Keplerian orbits in such a potential can be calculated directly and are only weakly perturbed. For a given average number of steps per orbit, bhint is almost a factor of 100 more accurate than the standard Hermite method.
Catena integrates the orbits of an ensemble of stars using the chain-regularization method (Mikkola & Aarseth) with an embedded Runge-Kutta integration method of 9(8)th order (Prince & Dormand).
The parameters of the mutual orbit of eclipsing binaries that are physically connected can be obtained by precision timing of minima over time through light travel time effect, apsidal motion or orbital precession. This, however, requires joint analysis of data from different sources obtained through various techniques and with insufficiently quantified uncertainties. In particular, photometric uncertainties are often underestimated, which yields too small uncertainties in minima timings if determined through analysis of a χ2 surface. The task is even more difficult for double eclipsing binaries, especially those with periods close to a resonance such as CzeV344, where minima get often blended with each other.
This code solves the double binary parameters simultaneously and then uses these parameters to determine minima timings (or more specifically O-C values) for individual datasets. In both cases, the uncertainties (or more precisely confidence intervals) are determined through bootstrap resampling of the original data. This procedure to a large extent alleviates the common problem with underestimated photometric uncertainties and provides a check on possible degeneracies in the parameters and the stability of the results. While there are shortcomings to this method as well when compared to Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, the ease of the implementation of bootstrapping is a significant advantage.
BASE is a novel program for the combined or separate Bayesian analysis of astrometric and radial-velocity measurements of potential exoplanet hosts and binary stars. The tool fulfills two major tasks of exoplanet science, namely the detection of exoplanets and the characterization of their orbits. BASE was developed to provide the possibility of an integrated Bayesian analysis of stellar astrometric and Doppler-spectroscopic measurements with respect to their binary or planetary companions’ signals, correctly treating the astrometric measurement uncertainties and allowing to explore the whole parameter space without the need for informative prior constraints. The tool automatically diagnoses convergence of its Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC[2]) sampler to the posterior and regularly outputs status information. For orbit characterization, BASE delivers important results such as the probability densities and correlations of model parameters and derived quantities. BASE is a highly configurable command-line tool developed in Fortran 2008 and compiled with GFortran. Options can be used to control the program’s behaviour and supply information such as the stellar mass or prior information. Any option can be supplied in a configuration file and/or on the command line.
The efficiency of thin disk accretion onto black holes depends on the inner boundary condition, specifically the torque applied to the disk at the last stable orbit. This is usually assumed to vanish. This code estimates the torque on a magnetized disk using a steady magnetohydrodynamic inflow model originally developed by Takahashi et al. The efficiency e can depart significantly from the classical thin disk value. In some cases e > 1, i.e., energy is extracted from the black hole.
ORBADV adopts a ZEUS-like scheme to solve magnetohydrodynamic equations of motion in a shearing sheet. The magnetic field is discretized on a staggered mesh, and magnetic field variables represent fluxes through zone faces. The code uses obital advection to ensure fast and accurate integration in a large shearing box.
BOOTTRAN calculates error bars for Keplerian orbital parameters for both single- and multiple-planet systems. It takes the best-fit parameters and radial velocity data (BJD, velocity, errors) and calculates the error bars from sampling distribution estimated via bootstrapping. It is recommended to be used together with the RVLIN (ascl:1210.031) package, which find best-fit Keplerian orbital parameters. Both RVLIN and BOOTTRAN are compatible with multiple-telescope data. BOOTTRAN also calculates the transit time and secondary eclipse time and their associated error bars. The algorithm is described in the appendix of the associated article.
The RVLIN package for IDL is a set of routines that quickly fits an arbitrary number of Keplerian curves to radial velocity data. It can handle data from multiple telescopes (i.e. it solves for the offset), constraints on P, e, and time of peri passage, and can incorporate transit timing data. The code handles fixed periods and circular orbits in combination and transit time constraints, including for multiple transiting planets.
MARX (Model of AXAF Response to X-rays) is a suite of programs designed to enable the user to simulate the on-orbit performance of the Chandra satellite. MARX provides a detailed ray-trace simulation of how Chandra responds to a variety of astrophysical sources and can generate standard FITS events files and images as output. It contains models for the HRMA mirror system onboard Chandra as well as the HETG and LETG gratings and all focal plane detectors.
BSE is a rapid binary star evolution code. It can model circularization of eccentric orbits and synchronization of stellar rotation with the orbital motion owing to tidal interaction in detail. Angular momentum loss mechanisms, such as gravitational radiation and magnetic braking, are also modelled. Wind accretion, where the secondary may accrete some of the material lost from the primary in a wind, is allowed with the necessary adjustments made to the orbital parameters in the event of any mass variations. Mass transfer occurs if either star fills its Roche lobe and may proceed on a nuclear, thermal or dynamical time-scale. In the latter regime, the radius of the primary increases in response to mass-loss at a faster rate than the Roche-lobe of the star. Prescriptions to determine the type and rate of mass transfer, the response of the secondary to accretion and the outcome of any merger events are in place in BSE.
PINOCCHIO generates catalogues of cosmological dark matter halos with known mass, position, velocity and merger history. It is able to reproduce, with very good accuracy, the hierarchical formation of dark matter halos from a realization of an initial (linear) density perturbation field, given on a 3D grid. Its setup is similar to that of a conventional N-body simulation, but it is based on the powerful Lagrangian Perturbation Theory. It runs in just a small fraction of the computing time taken by an equivalent N-body simulation, producing promptly the merging histories of all halos in the catalog.
Orbfit determines positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer solar system planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared with traditional methods because acceleration can be treated as a perturbation to the inertial motion of the body. Orbfit quickly and accurately calculates orbital elements and ephemerides and their associated uncertainties for targets ≳ 10 AU from the Sun and produces positional estimates and uncertainty ellipses even in the face of the substantial degeneracies of short-arc orbit fits; the sole a priori assumption is that the orbit should be bound or nearly so.
SMILE is interactive software for studying a variety of 2D and 3D models, including arbitrary potentials represented by a basis-set expansion, a spherical-harmonic expansion with coefficients being smooth functions of radius (splines), or a set of fixed point masses. Its main features include:
LOSP is a FORTRAN77 numerical package that computes the orbital parameters of spectroscopic binaries. The package deals with SB1 and SB2 systems and is able to adjust either circular or eccentric orbits through a weighted fit.
The Beta Inverse code solves the inverse cumulative density function (CDF) of a Beta distribution, allowing one to sample from the Beta prior directly. The Beta distribution is well suited as a prior for the distribution of the orbital eccentricities of extrasolar planets; imposing a Beta prior on orbital eccentricity is valuable for any type of observation of an exoplanet where eccentricity can affect the model parameters (e.g. transits, radial velocities, microlensing, direct imaging). The Beta prior is an excellent description of the current, empirically determined distribution of orbital eccentricities and thus employing it naturally incorporates an observer’s prior experience of what types of orbits are probable or improbable. The default parameters in the code are currently set to the Beta distribution which best describes the entire population of exoplanets with well-constrained orbits.
The Jeans Anisotropic MGE (JAM) modeling method uses the Multi-Gaussian Expansion parameterization for the galaxy surface brightness. The code allows for orbital anisotropy (three-integrals distribution function) and also provides the full second moment tensor, including proper motions and radial velocities.
Raga (Relaxation in Any Geometry) is a Monte Carlo simulation method for gravitational dynamics of non-spherical stellar systems. It is based on the SMILE software (ascl:1308.001) for orbit analysis. It can simulate stellar systems with a much smaller number of particles N than the number of stars in the actual system, represent an arbitrary non-spherical potential with a basis-set or spline spherical-harmonic expansion with the coefficients of expansion computed from particle trajectories, and compute particle trajectories independently and in parallel using a high-accuracy adaptive-timestep integrator. Raga can also model two-body relaxation by local (position-dependent) velocity diffusion coefficients (as in Spitzer's Monte Carlo formulation) and adjust the magnitude of relaxation to the actual number of stars in the target system, and model the effect of a central massive black hole.
POET (Planetary Orbital Evolution due to Tides) calculates the orbital evolution of a system consisting of a single star with a single planet in orbit under the influence of tides. The following effects are The evolutions of the semimajor axis of the orbit due to the tidal dissipation in the star and the angular momentum of the stellar convective envelope by the tidal coupling are taken into account. In addition, the evolution includes the transfer of angular momentum between the stellar convective and radiative zones, effect of the stellar evolution on the tidal dissipation efficiency, and stellar core and envelope spins and loss of stellar convective zone angular momentum to a magnetically launched wind. POET can be used out of the box, and can also be extended and modified.
galpy is a python package for galactic dynamics. It supports orbit integration in a variety of potentials, evaluating and sampling various distribution functions, and the calculation of action-angle coordinates for all static potentials.
ECCSAMPLES solves the inverse cumulative density function (CDF) of a Beta distribution, sometimes called the IDF or inverse transform sampling. This allows one to sample from the relevant priors directly. ECCSAMPLES actually provides joint samples for both the eccentricity and the argument of periastron, since for transiting systems they display non-zero covariance.
DASTCOM5 is a portable direct-access database containing all NASA/JPL asteroid and comet orbit solutions, and the software to access it. Available data include orbital elements, orbit diagrams, physical parameters, and discovery circumstances. A JPL implementation of the software is available at http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi.
LP-VIcode computes variational chaos indicators (CIs) quickly and easily. The following CIs are included:
NIGO (Numerical Integrator of Galactic Orbits) predicts the orbital evolution of test particles moving within a fully-analytical gravitational potential generated by a multi-component galaxy. The code can simulate the orbits of stars in elliptical and disc galaxies, including non-axisymmetric components represented by a spiral pattern and/or rotating bar(s).
OpenOrb (OOrb) contains tools for rigorously estimating the uncertainties resulting from the inverse problem of computing orbital elements using scarce astrometry. It uses the least-squares method and also contains both Monte-Carlo (MC) and Markov-Chain MC versions of the statistical ranging method. Ranging obtains sampled, non-Gaussian orbital-element probability-density functions and is optimized for cases where the amount of astrometry is scarce or spans a relatively short time interval.
nbody6tt, based on Aarseth's nbody6 (ascl:1102.006) code, includes the treatment of complex galactic tides in a direct N-body simulation of a star cluster through the use of tidal tensors (tt) and offers two complementary methods. The first allows consideration of any kind of galaxy and orbit, thus offering versatility; this method cannot be used to study tidal debris, as it relies on the tidal approximation (linearization of the tidal force). The second method is not limited by this and does not require a galaxy simulation; the user defines a numerical function which takes position and time as arguments, and the galactic potential is returned. The space and time derivatives of the potential are used to (i) integrate the motion of the cluster on its orbit in the galaxy (starting from user-defined initial position and velocity vector), and (ii) compute the tidal acceleration on the stars.
libnova is a general purpose, double precision, celestial mechanics, astrometry and astrodynamics library. Among many other calculations, it can calculate aberration, apparent position, proper motion, planetary positions, orbit velocities and lengths, angular separation of bodies, and hyperbolic motion of bodies.
MaLTPyNT (Matteo's Libraries and Tools in Python for NuSTAR Timing) provides a quick-look timing analysis of NuSTAR data, properly treating orbital gaps and exploiting the presence of two independent detectors by using the cospectrum as a proxy for the power density spectrum. The output of the analysis is a cospectrum, or a power density spectrum, that can be fitted with XSPEC (ascl:9910.005) or ISIS (ascl:1302.002). The software also calculates time lags. Though written for NuSTAR data, MaLTPyNT can also perform standard spectral analysis on X-ray data from other satellite such as XMM-Newton and RXTE.
A successor of FARGO (ascl:1102.017), FARGO3D is a versatile HD/MHD code that runs on clusters of CPUs or GPUs, with special emphasis on protoplanetary disks. FARGO3D offers Cartesian, cylindrical or spherical geometry; 1-, 2- or 3-dimensional calculations; and orbital advection (aka FARGO) for HD and MHD calculations. As in FARGO, a simple Runge-Kutta N-body solver may be used to describe the orbital evolution of embedded point-like objects. There is no need to know CUDA; users can develop new functions in C and have them translated to CUDA automatically to run on GPUs.
The kozai Python package evolves hierarchical triple systems in the secular approximation. As its name implies, the kozai package is useful for studying Kozai-Lidov oscillations. The kozai package can represent and evolve hierarchical triples using either the Delaunay orbital elements or the angular momentum and eccentricity vectors. kozai contains functions to calculate the period of Kozai-Lidov oscillations and the maximum eccentricity reached; it also contains a module to study octupole order effects by averaging over individual Kozai-Lidov oscillations.
PyTransit implements optimized versions of the Giménez and Mandel & Agol transit models for exoplanet transit light-curves. The two models are implemented natively in Fortran with OpenMP parallelization, and are accessed by an object-oriented python interface. PyTransit facilitates the analysis of photometric time series of exoplanet transits consisting of hundreds of thousands of data points, and of multipassband transit light curves from spectrophotometric observations. It offers efficient model evaluation for multicolour observations and transmission spectroscopy, built-in supersampling to account for extended exposure times, and routines to calculate the projected planet-to-star distance for circular and eccentric orbits, transit durations, and more.
GBART is an improved version of the code for determining the orbital elements for spectroscopic binaries originally written by Bertiau & Grobben (1968).
SuperFreq numerically estimates the fundamental frequencies and orbital actions of pre-computed orbital time series. It is an implementation of a version of the Numerical Analysis of Fundamental Frequencies close to that by Monica Valluri, which itself is an implementation of an algorithm first used by Jacques Laskar.
Mercury-T calculates the evolution of semi-major axis, eccentricity, inclination, rotation period and obliquity of the planets as well as the rotation period evolution of the host body; it is based on the N-body code Mercury (Chambers 1999, ascl:1201.008). It is flexible, allowing computation of the tidal evolution of systems orbiting any non-evolving object (if its mass, radius, dissipation factor and rotation period are known), but also evolving brown dwarfs (BDs) of mass between 0.01 and 0.08 M⊙, an evolving M-dwarf of 0.1 M⊙, an evolving Sun-like star, and an evolving Jupiter.
TM (Torus Mapper) produces models for orbits in action-angle coordinates in axisymmetric potentials using torus mapping, a non-perturbative technique for creating orbital tori for specified values of the action integrals. It can compute a star's position at any time given an orbital torus and a star’s position at a reference time, and also provides a way to choose initial conditions for N-body simulations of realistic disc galaxies that start in perfect equilibrium. TM provides some advantages over use of a standard time-stepper to create orbits.
The Action Computation Tool (TACT) tests methods for estimating actions, angles and frequencies of orbits in both axisymmetric and triaxial potentials, including general spherical potentials, analytic potentials (Isochrone and Harmonic oscillator), axisymmetric Stackel fudge, average generating function from orbit (AvGF), and others. It is written in C++; code is provided to compile the routines into a Python library. TM (ascl:1512.014) and LAPACK are required to access some features.
TRADES (TRAnsits and Dynamics of Exoplanetary Systems) simultaneously fits observed radial velocities and transit times data to determine the orbital parameters of exoplanetary systems from observational data. It uses a dynamical simulator for N-body systems that also fits the available data during the orbital integration and determines the best combination of the orbital parameters using grid search, χ2 minimization, genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization, and bootstrap analysis.
The R package Celestial contains common astronomy conversion routines, particularly the HMS and degrees schemes, and a large range of functions for calculating properties of different cosmologies (as used by the cosmocalc website). This includes distances, ages, growth rate/factor and densities (e.g., Omega evolution and critical energy density). It also includes functions for calculating thermal properties of the CMB and Planck's equations and virial properties of halos in different cosmologies, and standard NFW and weak-lensing formulas and low level orbital routines for calculating Roche properties, Vis-Viva and free-fall times.
CORBITS (Computed Occurrence of Revolving Bodies for the Investigation of Transiting Systems) computes the probability that any particular group of exoplanets can be observed to transit from a collection of conjectured exoplanets orbiting a star. The efficient, semi-analytical code computes the areas bounded by circular curves on the surface of a sphere by applying elementary differential geometry. CORBITS is faster than previous algorithms, based on comparisons with Monte Carlo simulations, and tests show that it is extremely accurate even for highly eccentric planets.
TTVFaster implements analytic formulae for transit time variations (TTVs) that are accurate to first order in the planet–star mass ratios and in the orbital eccentricities; the implementations are available in several languages, including IDL, Julia, Python and C. These formulae compare well with more computationally expensive N-body integrations in the low-eccentricity, low mass-ratio regime when applied to simulated and to actual multi-transiting Kepler planet systems.
DISCO evolves orbital fluid motion in two and three dimensions, especially at high Mach number, for studying astrophysical disks. The software uses a moving-mesh approach with a dynamic cylindrical mesh that can shear azimuthally to follow the orbital motion of the gas, thus removing diffusive advection errors and permitting longer timesteps than a static grid. DISCO uses an HLLD Riemann solver and a constrained transport scheme compatible with the mesh motion to implement magnetohydrodynamics.
Duo computes rotational, rovibrational and rovibronic spectra of diatomic molecules. The software, written in Fortran 2003, solves the Schrödinger equation for the motion of the nuclei for the simple case of uncoupled, isolated electronic states and also for the general case of an arbitrary number and type of couplings between electronic states. Possible couplings include spin–orbit, angular momenta, spin-rotational and spin–spin. Introducing the relevant couplings using so-called Born–Oppenheimer breakdown curves can correct non-adiabatic effects.
ViSBARD interactively visualizes and analyzes space physics data. It provides an interactive integrated 3-D and 2-D environment to determine correlations between measurements across many spacecraft. It supports a variety of spacecraft data products and MHD models and is easily extensible to others. ViSBARD provides a way of visualizing multiple vector and scalar quantities as measured by many spacecraft at once. The data are displayed three-dimesionally along the orbits which may be displayed either as connected lines or as points. The data display allows the rapid determination of vector configurations, correlations between many measurements at multiple points, and global relationships. With the addition of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model data, this environment can also be used to validate simulation results with observed data, use simulated data to provide a global context for sparse observed data, and apply feature detection techniques to the simulated data.
DICE models initial conditions of idealized galaxies to study their secular evolution or their more complex interactions such as mergers or compact groups using N-Body/hydro codes. The code can set up a large number of components modeling distinct parts of the galaxy, and creates 3D distributions of particles using a N-try MCMC algorithm which does not require a prior knowledge of the distribution function. The gravitational potential is then computed on a multi-level Cartesian mesh by solving the Poisson equation in the Fourier space. Finally, the dynamical equilibrium of each component is computed by integrating the Jeans equations for each particles. Several galaxies can be generated in a row and be placed on Keplerian orbits to model interactions. DICE writes the initial conditions in the Gadget1 or Gadget2 (ascl:0003.001) format and is fully compatible with Ramses (ascl:1011.007).
For a massless test particle and given a planetary system, Atlas2bgeneral calculates all resonances in a given range of semimajor axes with all the planets taken one by one. Planets are assumed in fixed circular and coplanar orbits and the test particle with arbitrary orbit. A sample input data file to calculate the two-body resonances is available for use with the Fortran77 source code.
For a massless test particle and given a planetary system, atlas3bgeneral calculates all three body resonances in a given range of semimajor axes with all the planets taken by pairs. Planets are assumed in fixed circular and coplanar orbits and the test particle with arbitrary orbit. A sample input data file to calculate the three-body resonances is available for use with the Fortran77 source code.
Given two planets P1 and P2 with arbitrary orbits, planetary3br calculates all possible semimajor axes that a third planet P0 can have in order for the system to be in a three body resonance; these are identified by the combination k0*P0 + k1*P1 + k2*P2. P1 and P2 are assumed to be not in an exact two-body resonance. The program also calculates three "strengths" of the resonance, one for each planet, which are only indicators of the dynamical relevance of the resonance on each planet. Sample input data are available along with the Fortran77 source code.
OBERON (OBliquity and Energy balance Run on N-body systems) models the climate of Earthlike planets under the effects of an arbitrary number and arrangement of other bodies, such as stars, planets and moons. The code, written in C++, simultaneously computes N body motions using a 4th order Hermite integrator, simulates climates using a 1D latitudinal energy balance model, and evolves the orbital spin of bodies using the equations of Laskar (1986a,b).
TIDEV (Tidal Evolution package) calculates the evolution of rotation for tidally interacting bodies using Efroimsky-Makarov-Williams (EMW) formalism. The package integrates tidal evolution equations and computes the rotational and dynamical evolution of a planet under tidal and triaxial torques. TIDEV accounts for the perturbative effects due to the presence of the other planets in the system, especially the secular variations of the eccentricity. Bulk parameters include the mass and radius of the planet (and those of the other planets involved in the integration), the size and mass of the host star, the Maxwell time and Andrade's parameter. TIDEV also calculates the time scale that a planet takes to be tidally locked as well as the periods of rotation reached at the end of the spin-orbit evolution.
Velbin convolves the radial velocity offsets due to binary orbital motions with a Gaussian to model an observed velocity distribution. This can be used to measure the mean velocity and velocity dispersion from an observed radial velocity distribution, corrected for binary orbital motions. Velbin fits single- or multi-epoch data with any arbitrary binary orbital parameter distribution (as long as it can be sampled properly), however it always assumes that the intrinsic velocity distribution (i.e. corrected for binary orbital motions) is a Gaussian. Velbin samples (and edits) a binary orbital parameter distribution, fits an observed radial velocity distribution, and creates a mock radial velocity distribution that can be used to provide the fitted radial velocities in the single_epoch or multi_epoch methods.
Icarus is a stellar binary light curve synthesis tool that generates a star, given some basic binary parameters, by solving the gravitational potential equation, creating a discretized stellar grid, and populating the stellar grid with physical parameters, including temperature and surface gravity. Icarus also evaluates the outcoming flux from the star given an observer's point of view (i.e., orbital phase and orbital orientation).
PRECESSION is a comprehensive toolbox for exploring the dynamics of precessing black-hole binaries in the post-Newtonian regime. It allows study of the evolution of the black-hole spins along their precession cycles, performs gravitational-wave-driven binary inspirals using both orbit-averaged and precession-averaged integrations, and predicts the properties of the merger remnant through fitting formulas obtained from numerical-relativity simulations. PRECESSION can add the black-hole spin dynamics to larger-scale numerical studies such as gravitational-wave parameter estimation codes, population synthesis models to predict gravitational-wave event rates, galaxy merger trees and cosmological simulations of structure formation, and provides fast and reliable integration methods to propagate statistical samples of black-hole binaries from/to large separations where they form to/from small separations where they become detectable, thus linking gravitational-wave observations of spinning black-hole binaries to their astrophysical formation history. The code is also useful for computing initial parameters for numerical-relativity simulations targeting specific precessing systems.
GalPot finds the gravitational potential associated with axisymmetric density profiles. The package includes code that performs transformations between commonly used coordinate systems for both positions and velocities (the class OmniCoords), and that integrates orbits in the potentials. GalPot is a stand-alone version of Walter Dehnen's GalaxyPotential C++ code taken from the falcON code in the NEMO Stellar Dynamics Toolbox (ascl:1010.051).
Transit Clairvoyance uses Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to predict the most likely short period transiters to have additional transiters, which may double the discovery yield of the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). Clairvoyance is a simple 2-D interpolant that takes in the number of planets in a system with period less than 13.7 days, as well as the maximum radius amongst them (in Earth radii) and orbital period of the planet with maximum radius (in Earth days) in order to predict the probability of additional transiters in this system with period greater than 13.7 days.
PyORBIT handles several kinds of datasets, such as radial velocity (RV), activity indexes, and photometry, to simultaneously characterize the orbital parameters of exoplanets and the noise induced by the activity of the host star. RV computation is performed using either non-interacting Kepler orbits or n-body integration. Stellar activity can be modeled either with sinusoids at the rotational period and its harmonics or Gaussian process. In addition, the code can model offsets and systematics in measurements from several instruments. The PyORBIT code is modular; new methods for stellar activity modeling or parameter estimation can easily be incorporated into the code.
pylightcurve is a model for light-curves of transiting planets. It uses the four coefficients law for the stellar limb darkening and returns the relative flux, F(t), as a function of the limb darkening coefficients, an, the Rp/R* ratio and all the orbital parameters based on the nonlinear limb darkening model (Claret 2000).
Given sparse or low-quality radial-velocity measurements of a star, there are often many qualitatively different stellar or exoplanet companion orbit models that are consistent with the data. The consequent multimodality of the likelihood function leads to extremely challenging search, optimization, and MCMC posterior sampling over the orbital parameters. The Joker is a custom-built Monte Carlo sampler that can produce a posterior sampling for orbital parameters given sparse or noisy radial-velocity measurements, even when the likelihood function is poorly behaved. The method produces correct samplings in orbital parameters for data that include as few as three epochs. The Joker can therefore be used to produce proper samplings of multimodal pdfs, which are still highly informative and can be used in hierarchical (population) modeling.
ORBE performs numerical integration of an arbitrary planetary system composed by a central star and up to 100 planets and minor bodies. ORBE calculates the orbital evolution of a system of bodies by means of the computation of the time evolution of their orbital elements. It is easy to use and is suitable for educational use by undergraduate students in the classroom as a first approach to orbital integrators.
The spectral disentangling technique can be applied on a time series of observed spectra of a spectroscopic double-lined binary star (SB2) to determine the parameters of orbit and reconstruct the spectra of component stars, without the use of template spectra. fd3 disentangles the spectra of SB2 stars, capable also of resolving the possible third companion. It performs the separation of spectra in the Fourier space which is faster, but in several respects less versatile than the wavelength-space separation. (Wavelength-space separation is implemented in the twin code CRES.) fd3 is written in C and is designed as a command-line utility for a Unix-like operating system. fd3 is a new version of FDBinary (ascl:1705.011), which is now deprecated.
FDBinary disentangles spectra of SB2 stars. The spectral disentangling technique can be applied on a time series of observed spectra of an SB2 to determine the parameters of orbit and reconstruct the spectra of component stars, without the use of template spectra. The code is written in C and is designed as a command-line utility for a Unix-like operating system. FDBinary uses the Fourier-space approach in separation of composite spectra. This code has been replaced with the newer fd3 (ascl:1705.012).
PSOAP (Precision Spectroscopic Orbits A-Parametrically) uses Gaussian processes to infer component spectra of single-lined and double-lined spectroscopic binaries, while simultaneously exploring the posteriors of the orbital parameters and the spectra themselves. PSOAP accounts for the natural λ-covariances in each spectrum, thus providing a natural "de-noising" of the spectra typically offered by Fourier techniques.
The simple, straightforward Exotrending code detrends exoplanet transit light curves given a light curve (flux versus time) and good ephemeris (epoch of first transit and orbital period). The code has been tested with Kepler and K2 light curves and should work with any other light curve.
EXOSIMS generates and analyzes end-to-end simulations of space-based exoplanet imaging missions. The software is built up of interconnecting modules describing different aspects of the mission, including the observatory, optical system, and scheduler (encoding mission rules) as well as the physical universe, including the assumed distribution of exoplanets and their physical and orbital properties. Each module has a prototype implementation that is inherited by specific implementations for different missions concepts, allowing for the simulation of widely variable missions.
Pyaneti is a multi-planet radial velocity and transit fit software. The code uses Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods with a Bayesian approach and a parallelized ensemble sampler algorithm in Fortran which makes the code fast. It creates posteriors, correlations, and ready-to-publish plots automatically, and handles circular and eccentric orbits. It is capable of multi-planet fitting and handles stellar limb darkening, systemic velocities for multiple instruments, and short and long cadence data, and offers additional capabilities.
ExoSOFT provides orbital analysis of exoplanets and binary star systems. It fits any combination of astrometric and radial velocity data, and offers four parameter space exploration techniques, including MCMC. It is packaged with an automated set of post-processing and plotting routines to summarize results, and is suitable for performing orbital analysis during surveys with new radial velocity and direct imaging instruments.
Two neural networks were designed to identify hazardous planetesimals that were trained on object trajectories calculated in a cloud computing environment. The first neural network was fully-connected and was trained on the orbital elements (OEs) of real/simulated planetesimals, while the second was a 1-dimensional convolutional neural network that was trained on the position Cartesian coordinates of real/simulated planetesimals. Ultimately, the network trained on OEs had a better performance by identifying one-third of known potentially hazardous objects including the 3 asteroids with the highest chance of impact with Earth (2009 FD, 1999 RQ36, 1950 DA) as established by NASA's Monte Carlo based Sentry system.
RadVel models Keplerian orbits in radial velocity (RV) time series. The code is written in Python with a fast Kepler's equation solver written in C. It provides a framework for fitting RVs using maximum a posteriori optimization and computing robust confidence intervals by sampling the posterior probability density via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). RadVel can perform Bayesian model comparison and produces publication quality plots and LaTeX tables.
The Opik method gives the mean probability of collision of a small body with a given planet. It is a statistical value valid for an orbit with given (a,e,i) and undefined argument of perihelion. In some cases, the planet can eject the small body from the solar system; in these cases, the program estimates the mean time for the ejection. The Opik method does not take into account other perturbers than the planet considered, so it only provides an idea of the timescales involved.
PyOSE is a fully numerical orbital sampling effect (OSE) simulator that can model arbitrary inclinations of the transiting moon orbit. It can be used to search for exomoons in long-term stellar light curves such as those by Kepler and the upcoming PLATO mission.
muLAn analyzes and fits light curves of gravitational microlensing events. The code includes all classical microlensing models (for example, single and binary microlenses, ground- and space-based parallax effects, orbital motion, finite-source effects, and limb-darkening); these can be combined into several time intervals of the analyzed light curve. Minimization methods include an Affine-Invariant Ensemble Sampler to generate a multivariate proposal function while running several Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) chains, for the set of parameters which is chosen to be fit; non-fitting parameters can be either kept fixed or set on a grid defined by the user. Furthermore, the software offers a model-free option to align all data sets together and allow inspection the light curve before any modeling work. It also comes with many useful routines (export publication-quality figures, data formatting and cleaning) and state-of-the-art statistical tools.
Modeling results can be interpreted using an interactive html page which contains all information about the light curve model, caustics, source trajectory, best-fit parameters and chi-square. Parameters uncertainties and statistical properties (such as multi-modal features of the posterior density) can be assessed from correlation plots. The code is modular, allowing the addition of other computation or minimization routines by directly adding their Python files without modifying the main code. The software has been designed to be easy to use even for the newcomer in microlensing, with external, synthetic and self-explanatory setup files containing all important commands and option settings. The user may choose to launch the code through command line instructions, or to import muLAn within another Python project like any standard Python package.
orbit-estimation tests and evaluates the Stäckel approximation method for estimating orbit parameters in galactic potentials. It relies on the approximation of the Galactic potential as a Stäckel potential, in a prolate confocal coordinate system, under which the vertical and horizontal motions decouple. By solving the Hamilton Jacobi equations at the turning points of the horizontal and vertical motions, it is possible to determine the spatial boundary of the orbit, and hence calculate the desired orbit parameters.
The AGAMA library is a collection of tools for constructing and analyzing models of galaxies. It computes gravitational potential and forces, performs orbit integration and analysis, and can convert between position/velocity and action/angle coordinates. It offers a framework for finding best-fit parameters of a model from data and self-consistent multi-component galaxy models, and contains useful auxiliary utilities such as various mathematical routines. The core of the library is written in C++, and there are Python and Fortran interfaces. AGAMA may be used as a plugin for the stellar-dynamical software packages galpy (ascl:1411.008), AMUSE (ascl:1107.007), and NEMO (ascl:1010.051).
Comparing properties of discovered trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) with dynamical models is impossible due to the observational biases that exist in surveys. The OSSOS Survey Simulator takes an intrinsic orbital model (from, for example, the output of a dynamical Kuiper belt emplacement simulation) and applies the survey biases, so the biased simulated objects can be directly compared with real discoveries.
EARL (Exoplanet Analytic Reflected Lightcurves) computes the analytic form of a reflected lightcurve, given a spherical harmonic decomposition of the planet albedo map and the viewing and orbital geometries. The EARL Mathematica notebook allows rapid computation of reflected lightcurves, thus making lightcurve numerical experiments accessible.
exocartographer solves the exo-cartography inverse problem. This flexible forward-modeling framework, written in Python, retrieves the albedo map and spin geometry of a planet based on time-resolved photometry; it uses a Markov chain Monte Carlo method to extract albedo maps and planet spin and their uncertainties. Gaussian Processes use the data to fit for the characteristic length scale of the map and enforce smooth maps.
Quantum ESPRESSO (opEn-Source Package for Research in Electronic Structure, Simulation, and Optimization) is an integrated suite of codes for electronic-structure calculations and materials modeling at the nanoscale. It is based on density-functional theory, plane waves, and pseudopotentials. QE performs ground-state calculations such as self-consistent total energies, forces, stresses and Kohn-Sham orbitals, Car-Parrinello and Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, and quantum transport such as ballistic transport, coherent transport from maximally localized Wannier functions, and Kubo-Greenwood electrical conductivity. It can also determine spectroscopic properties and examine time-dependent density functional perturbations and electronic excitations, and has a wide range of other functions.
The routines in ktransit create and fit a transiting planet model. The underlying model is a Fortran implementation of the Mandel & Agol (2002) limb darkened transit model. The code calculates a full orbital model and eccentricity can be allowed to vary; radial velocity data can also be calculated via the model and included in the fit.
rsigma calculates the resonant disturbing function, R(sigma), for a massless particle in an arbitrary orbit perturbed by a planet in circular orbit. This function defines the strength of the resonance (its semi-amplitude) and the location of the stable equilibrium points (the minima). It depends on the variable sigma called critical angle and on the particle's orbital elements a, e, i and the argument of the perihelion. R(sigma) is numerically calculated and the code is valid for arbitrary eccentricities and inclinations, including retrograde orbits.
ODTBX (Orbit Determination Toolbox) provides orbit determination analysis, advanced mission simulation, and analysis for concept exploration, proposal, early design phase, and/or rapid design center environments. The core ODTBX functionality is realized through a set of estimation commands that incorporate Monte Carlo data simulation, linear covariance analysis, and measurement processing at a generic level; its functions and utilities are combined in a flexible architecture to allow modular development of navigation algorithms and simulations. ODTBX is written in Matlab and Java.
VPLanet (Virtual Planetary Laboratory) simulates planetary system evolution with a focus on habitability. Physical models, typically consisting of ordinary differential equations for stellar, orbital, tidal, rotational, atmospheric, internal, magnetic, climate, and galactic evolution, are coupled together to simulate evolution for the age of a system.
distlink computes the minimum orbital intersection distance (MOID), or global minimum of the distance between the points lying on two Keplerian ellipses by finding all stationary points of the distance function, based on solving an algebraic polynomial equation of 16th degree. The program tracks numerical errors and carefully treats nearly degenerate cases, including practical cases with almost circular and almost coplanar orbits. Benchmarks confirm its high numeric reliability and accuracy, and even with its error-controlling overheads, this algorithm is a fast MOID computation method that may be useful in processing large catalogs. Written in C++, the library also includes auxiliary functions.
GENGA (Gravitational ENcounters with Gpu Acceleration) integrates planet and planetesimal dynamics in the late stage of planet formation and stability analyses of planetary systems. It uses mixed variable integration when the motion is a perturbed Kepler orbit and combines this with a direct N-body Bulirsch-Stoer method during close encounters. It supports three simulation modes: 1.) integration of up to 2048 massive bodies; 2.) integration with up to a million test particles; and 3.) parallel integration of a large number of individual planetary systems.
ExPRES (Exoplanetary and Planetary Radio Emission Simulator) reproduces the occurrence of CMI-generated radio emissions from planetary magnetospheres, exoplanets or star-planet interacting systems in time-frequency plane, with special attention given to computation of the radio emission beaming at and near its source. Physical information drawn from such radio observations may include the location and dynamics of the radio sources, the type of current system leading to electron acceleration and their energy and, for exoplanetary systems, the magnetic field strength, the orbital period of the emitting body and the rotation period, tilt and offset of the planetary magnetic field. Most of these parameters can be remotely measured only via radio observations. ExPRES code provides the proper framework of analysis and interpretation for past (Cassini, Voyager, Galileo), current (Juno, ground-based radio telescopes) and future (BepiColombo, Juice) observations of planetary radio emissions, as well as for future detection of radio emissions from exoplanetary systems.
allesfitter provides flexible and robust inference of stars and exoplanets given photometric and radial velocity (RV) data. The software offers a rich selection of orbital and transit models, accommodating multiple exoplanets, multi-star systems, star spots, stellar flares, and various noise models. It features both parameter estimation and model selection. A graphical user interface is used to specify input parameters, and to easily run a nested sampling or Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) fit, producing publication-ready tables, LaTex code, and plots. allesfitter provides an inference framework that unites the versatile packages ellc (ascl:1603.016), aflare (flare model; Davenport et al. 2014), dynesty (ascl:1809.013), emcee (ascl:1303.002) and celerite (ascl:1709.008).
HelioPy provides a set of tools to download and read in data, and carry out other common data processing tasks for heliospheric and planetary physics. It handles a wide variety of solar and satellite data and builds upon the SpiceyPy package (ascl:1903.016) to provide an accessible interface for performing orbital calculations. It has also implemented a framework to perform transformations between some common coordinate systems.
OoT (Out-of-Transit) calculates the light curves and radial velocity signals due to a planet orbiting a star. It explicitly models the effects of tides, orbital motion. relativistic beaming, and reflection of the stars light by the planet. The code can also be used to model secondary eclipses.
CausticFrog models the reaction of a system of orbiting particles to instantaneous mass loss. It applies to any spherically symmetric potential, and follows the radial evolution of shells of mass. CausticFrog tracks the inner and outer edge of each shell, whose radius evolves as a test particle. The amount of mass in each shell is fixed but multiple shells can overlap leading to higher densities.
digest2 classifies Near-Earth Object (NEO) candidates by providing a score, D2, that represents a pseudo-probability that a tracklet belongs to a given solar system orbit type. The code accurately and precisely distinguishes NEOs from non-NEOs, thus helping to identify those to be prioritized for follow-up observation. This fast, short-arc orbit classifier for small solar system bodies code is built upon the Pangloss code developed by Robert McNaught and further developed by Carl Hergenrother and Tim Spahr and Robert Jedicke's 223.f code.
THALASSA (Tool for High-Accuracy, Long-term Analyses for SSA) propagates orbits for bodies in the Earth-Moon-Sun system. Written in Fortran, it integrates either Newtonian equations in Cartesian coordinates or regularized equations of motion with the LSODAR (Livermore Solver for Ordinary Differential equations with Automatic Root-finding). THALASSA is a command-line tool; the repository also includes some Python3 scripts to perform batch propagations.
The Exo-Striker analyzes exoplanet orbitals, performs N-body simulations, and models the RV stellar reflex motion caused by dynamically interacting planets in multi-planetary systems. It offers a broad range of tools for detailed analysis of transit and Doppler data, including power spectrum analysis for Doppler and transit data; Keplerian and dynamical modeling of multi-planet systems; MCMC and nested sampling; Gaussian Processes modeling; and a long-term stability check of multi-planet systems. The Exo-Striker can also analyze Mean Motion Resonance (MMR) analysis, create fast fully interactive plots, and export ready-to-use LaTeX tables with best-fit parameters, errors, and statistics. It combines Fortran efficiency and Python flexibility and is cross-platform compatible (MAC OS, Linux, Windows). The tool relies on a number of open-source packages, including RVmod engine, emcee (ascl:1303.002), batman (ascl:1510.002), celerite (ascl:1709.008), and dynesty (ascl:1809.013).
Skyfield computes positions for the stars, planets, and satellites in orbit around the Earth. Its results should agree with the positions generated by the United States Naval Observatory and their Astronomical Almanac to within 0.0005 arcseconds (which equals half a “mas” or milliarcsecond). It computes geocentric coordinates or topocentric coordinates specific to your location on the Earth’s surface. Skyfield accepts AstroPy (ascl:1304.002) time objects as input and can return results in native AstroPy units but is not dependend on AstroPy nor its compiled libraries.
sbpy, an Astropy affiliated package, supplements functionality provided by Astropy (ascl:1304.002) with functions and methods that are frequently used for planetary astronomy with a clear focus on asteroids and comets. It offers access tools for various databases for orbital and physical data, spectroscopy analysis tools and models, photometry models for resolved and unresolved observations, ephemerides services, and other tools useful for small-body planetary astronomy.
orbitize fits the orbits of directly-imaged objects by packaging the Orbits for the Impatient (OFTI) algorithm and a parallel-tempered Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm into a consistent API. It accepts observations in three measurement formats, which can be mixed in the same input file, generates orbits, and plots the computed orbital parameters. orbitize offers numerous ways to visualize the data, including histograms, corner plots, and orbit plots. Generated orbits can be saved in HDF5 format for future use and analysis.
EPOS (Exoplanet Population Observation Simulator) simulates observations of exoplanet populations. It provides an interface between planet formation simulations and exoplanet surveys such as Kepler. EPOS can also be used to estimate planet occurrence rates and the orbital architectures of planetary systems.
CR-SISTEM models lunar orbital and rotational dynamics, taking into account the effects of a liquid core. Orbits of the Moon and Earth are fully integrated, and other planets (or additional point-mass satellites) may be included in the integration. Lunar and solar tides on Earth, eccentricity and obliquity tides on the Moon, and lunar core-mantle friction are included. The integrator is one file (crsistem5.for) written in FORTRAN 90, uses seven input files (settings.in, planets.in, moons.in, tidal.in, lunar.in, precess.in and core.in), and has at least eight output files (planet101.out, moon101.out, pole.out, spin_orb.out, spin_ecl.out, cspin_ecl.out, long.out and clong.out); additional moons and planets would add more output. The input files provided with the code set up a 1 Myr simulation of a slow-spinning Moon on an orbit of 40 Earth radii, which will then dynamically relax to the lowest-energy state (in this case it is a synchronous rotation with a core spinning separately from the mantle).
TPI computes the gravitational dynamics of particles orbiting a supermassive black hole (SBH). A distinction is made to two types of particles: test particles and field particles. Field particles are assumed to move in quasi-static Keplerian orbits around the SBH that precess due to the enclosed mass (Newtonian 'mass precession') and relativistic effects. Otherwise, field-particle-field-particle interactions are neglected. Test particles are integrated in the time-dependent potential of the field particles and the SBH. Relativistic effects are included in the equations of motion (including the effects of SBH spin), and test-particle-test-particle interactions are neglected.
SecularMultiple computes the secular (orbit-averaged) gravitational dynamics of hierarchical multiple systems composed of nested binary orbits (simplex-type systems) with any configuration and any number of bodies. A particle can represent a binary or a body. The structure of the system is determined by linking to other particles with the attributes child1 and child2, and tidal interactions and relativistic corrections are included in an ad hoc fashion. SecularMultiple also includes routines for external perturbations such as flybys and supernovae.
OrbWeaver extracts orbits from halo catalogs, enabling large statistical studies of their orbital parameters. The code is run in two stages. For the first run, a configuration file is used to modify orbit host selection and the region around orbit host used for the superset of orbiting halos. Each orbit host has a orbit forest (containing halos that passed within the region of interest); the code generates a pre-processed catalog which contains a superset of orbiting halo for each identified orbit host. The second run uses the file list generated in the first stage for the creation of the orbit catalog, which is the final output.
The heterogeneity of papers dealing with the discovery and characterization of exoplanets makes every attempt to maintain a uniform exoplanet catalog almost impossible. Four sources currently available online (NASA Exoplanet Archive, Exoplanet Orbit Database, Exoplanet Encyclopaedia, and Open Exoplanet Catalogue) are commonly used by the community, but they can hardly be compared, due to discrepancies in notations and selection criteria.
Exo-MerCat is a Python code that collects and selects the most precise measurement for all interesting planetary and orbital parameters contained in the four databases, accounting for the presence of multiple aliases for the same target. It can download information about the host star as well by the use of Virtual Observatory ConeSearch connections to the major archives such as SIMBAD and those available in VizieR. A Graphical User Interface is provided to filter data based on the user's constraints and generate automatic plots that are commonly used in the exoplanetary community.
With Exo-MerCat, we retrieved a unique catalog that merges information from the four main databases, standardizing the output and handling notation differences issues. Exo-MerCat can correct as many issues that prevent a direct correspondence between multiple items in the four databases as possible, with the available data. The catalog is available as a VO resource for everyone to use and it is periodically updated, according to the update rates of the source catalogs.
FORSTAND constructs dynamical models of galaxies using the Schwarzschild orbit-superposition method; the method is available as part of the AGAMA (ascl:1805.008) framework. The models created are constrained by line-of-sight kinematic observations and are applicable to galaxies of all morphological types, including disks and triaxial rotating bars.
The protocol describes the algorithm of arriving at LOD in a given past geological Epoch. First the lunar orbital radius of the given geologic epoch has to be determined. For this the velocity of recession of Moon for the accelerated phase has to be determined. The spatial integral of the reciprocal of Velocity of recession gives the the transit time of Moon from desired orbit to the present orbit.Through several iterations the transit time is made to converge on the geologic epoch. Once we determine the desired orbital radius it has to be substituted in the LOD expression to determine the LOD in the given geologic epoch.
PYSOLATOR removes the orbital modulation from a binary pulsar and/or its companion. In essence, it subtracts the predicted Roemer delay for the given orbit and then resamples the time series so as to make the signal appear as if it were emitted from the barycenter of the binary system, making the search for pulses easier and faster.
Wilson-Devinney binary star modeling code (WD) is a complete package for modeling binary stars and their eclipes and consists of two main modules. The LC module generates light and radial velocity curves, spectral line profiles, images, conjunction times, and timing residuals; the DC module handles differential corrections, performing parameter adjustment of light curves, velocity curves, and eclipse timings by the Least Squares criterion. WD handles eccentric orbits and asynchronous rotation, and can compute velocity curves (with proximity and eclipse effects). It offers options for detailed reflection and nonlinear (logarithmic law) limb darkening, adjustment of spot parameters, an optional provision for spots to drift over the surface, and can follow light curve development over large numbers of orbits. Absolute flux solution allow Direct Distance Estimation (DDE) and there are improved solutions for ellipsoidal variables and for eclipsing binaries (EBs) with very shallow eclipses. Absolute flux solutions also can estimate temperatures of both EB components under suitable circumstances.
RoLo (Roche Lobe) calculates the radius and potential of the Roche Lobe for any specified direction, and also gives some other commonly used quantities (such as the Lagrange points). The calculator is valid for any mass ratio q between 0.01 and 100. The coordinates are spherical-polar (R, theta, phi) centered on one star (M1), with the x-axis (theta=pi/2, phi=0) pointing towards the other star (M2). The mass ratio is defined as q=M2/M1. Distances are given in units of the binary separation, a. A circular orbit is assumed.
TATOO (Tidal-chronology Age TOOl) estimates the age of massive close-in planetary systems, even those subject to tidal spin-up, using the systems' observed properties: the mass of the planet and the star, stellar rotational, and planetary orbital periods. It can also be used as a classical gyrochronological tool and offers first order correction of the impact of tidal interaction on gyrochronology.
SPARTA is a post-processing framework for particle-based cosmological simulations. The code is written in pure, MPI-parallelized C and is optimized for high performance. The main purpose of SPARTA is to understand the formation of structure in a dynamical sense, namely by analyzing the trajectories (or orbits) of dark matter particles around their halos. Within this framework, the user can add analysis modules that operate on individual trajectories or entire halos. The initial goal of SPARTA was to compute the splashback radius of halos, but numerous other applications have been implemented as well, including spherical overdensity calculations and tracking subhalos via their constituent particles.
The N-body code PETAR (ParticlE Tree & particle-particle & Algorithmic Regularization) combines the methods of Barnes-Hut tree, Hermite integrator and slow-down algorithmic regularization (SDAR). It accurately handles an arbitrary fraction of multiple systems (e.g. binaries, triples) while keeping a high performance by using the hybrid parallelization methods with MPI, OpenMP, SIMD instructions and GPU. PETAR has very good agreement with NBODY6++GPU results on the long-term evolution of the global structure, binary orbits and escapers and is significantly faster when used on a highly configured GPU desktop computer. PETAR scales well when the number of cores increase on the Cray XC50 supercomputer, allowing a solution to the ten million-body problem which covers the region of ultra compact dwarfs and nuclear star clusters.
JB2008 (Jacchia-Bowman 2008) is an empirical thermospheric density model developed as an improved revision to the Jacchia-Bowman 2006 model, based on Jacchia’s diffusion equations. Driving solar indices are computed from on-orbit sensor data, which are used for the solar irradiances in the extreme through far ultraviolet, including x-ray and Lyman-α wavelengths. Exospheric temperature equations are developed to represent the thermospheric EUV and FUV heating. Semiannual density equations based on multiple 81-day average solar indices are used to represent the variations in the semiannual density cycle that result from EUV heating, and geomagnetic storm effects are modeled using the Dst index as the driver of global density changes.
Spin-Orbit Tomography (SOT) is a retrieval technique of a two-dimensional map of an Exo-Earth from time-series data of integrated reflection light. The software provides code for the Bayesian version of the static SOT and dynamic mapping (time-varying mapping) with full Bayesian modeling, and tutorials for L2 and Bayesian SOT are available in jupyter notebooks.
TDEmass interprets Tidal Disruption Event (TDE) observations. In TDEs, a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy tears apart an ordinary star; the debris is placed on highly eccentric orbits and ultimately produces a very bright flare. Using this TDEmass, one can infer the mass of the black hole (mbh) and the mass of the star (mstar) involved in a TDE.
ROGER (Reconstructing Orbits of Galaxies in Extreme Regions) predicts the dynamical properties of galaxies using the projected phase-space information. Written in R, it offers a choice of machine learning methods to classify the dynamical properties of galaxies. An interface for online use of the software is available at https://mdelosrios.shinyapps.io/roger_shiny/.
satcand applies theoretical constraints of orbital stability and tidal migration to KOI exomoon candidates. The package can evaluate the tidal migration within a Sun-Earth-Moon system, plot angular velocity over time, and calculate the migration time scale (T1) and the total migration time scale, among other things. In addition to the theoretical constraints, observational constraints can be applied.
Given a series of radial velocities as a function of time for a star in a binary system, BinaryStarSolver solves for various orbital parameters. Namely, it solves for eccentricity (e), argument of periastron (ω), velocity amplitude (K), long term average radial velocity (γ), and orbital period (P). If the orbital parameters of a primary star are already known, it can also find the orbital parameters of a companion star, with only a few radial velocity data points.
whereistheplanet predicts the locations of directly imaged companions (mainly exoplanets and brown dwarfs) based on past orbital fits to the data. This tool helps coordinate follow-up observations to characterize their properties, as precise pointing of the instrument is often needed. It uses orbitize! (ascl:1910.009) as a backend. whereistheplanet is available as a Python API, a command line tool, and a web form at whereistheplanet.com.
spinOS calculates binary orbital elements. Given a set of radial velocity measurements of a spectroscopic binary and/or relative position measurement of an astrometric binary, spinOS fits an orbital model by minimizing a chi squared metric. These routines are neatly packaged in a graphical user interface, developed using tkinter, facilitating use. Minimization is achieved by default using a Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm from lmfit [ascl:1606.014]. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo option is available to sample the posterior probability distribution in order to estimate errors on the orbital elements.
EPIC5 computes positions, velocities and densities along closed orbits of interstellar matter, including frictional forces, in a galaxy with an arbitrary perturbing potential. Radial velocities are given for chosen lines of sight. These are analytic gas orbits in an arbitrary rotating galactic potential using the linear epicyclic approximation
SpaceHub uses unique algorithms for fast precise and accurate computations for few-body problems ranging from interacting black holes to planetary dynamics. This few-body gravity integration toolkit can treat black hole dynamics with extreme mass ratios, extreme eccentricities and very close encounters. SpaceHub offers a regularized Radau integrator with round off error control down to 64 bits floating point machine precision and can handle extremely eccentric orbits and close approaches in long-term integrations.
Lofti_gaia fits orbital parameters for one wide stellar binary relative to the other, when both objects are resolved in Gaia DR2. It takes as input only the Gaia DR2 source id of the two components, and their masses. It retrieves the relevant parameters from the Gaia archive, computes observational constraints for them, and fits orbital parameters to those measurements. It assumes the two components are bound in an elliptical orbit.
SpheCow explores the structure and dynamics of any spherical model for galaxies and dark matter haloes. The lightweight and flexible code automatically calculates the dynamical properties, assuming an isotropic or Osipkov-Merritt anisotropic orbital structure, of any model with either an analytical density profile or an analytical surface density profile as a starting point. SpheCow contains readily usable implementations for many standard models, including the Plummer, Hernquist, NFW, Einasto, Sérsic and Nuker models. The code is easily extendable, allowing new models to be added in a straightforward way. The code is publicly available as a set of C++ routines and as a Python module.
orvara (Orbits from Radial Velocity, Absolute, and/or Relative Astrometry) fits orbits of bright stars and their faint companions (exoplanets, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, and low-mass stars). It can use any combination of radial velocity, relative astrometry, and absolute astrometry data and offers a variety of plots from the orbital fit, such as the radial velocity orbit over an extended time baseline, position angle between two companions, and a density plot of the predicted position at a chosen epoch. orvara can also check convergence of fitted parameters in the HDU1 extension, save the results from the fitted and inferred parameters from the HDU1 extension, and plot the results of a three-body or multiple-body fit.
dopmap constructs Doppler maps from the orbital variation of line profiles of (mass transferring) binaries. It uses an algorithm related to Richardson-Lucy iteration and includes an IDL-based set of routines for manipulating and plotting the input and output data.
Pyshellspec models binary systems with circumstellar matter (e.g. accretion disk, jet, shell), computes the interferometric observables |V2|, arg T3, |T3|, |dV|, and arg dV, and performs comparisons of light curves, spectro-interferometry, spectra, and SED with observations, and both global and local optimization of system parameters. The code solves the inverse problem of finding the stellar and orbital parameters of the stars and circumstellar medium. Pyshellspec is based on the long-characteristic LTE radiation transfer code Shellspec (ascl:1108.017).
ExoPlaSim extends the PlaSim (ascl:2107.019) 3D general climate model to terrestrial exoplanets. It includes the PlaSim general circulation model and modifications that allow this code to run tidally-locked planets, planets with substantially different surface pressures than Earth, planets orbiting stars with different effective temperatures, super-Earths, and more. ExoPlaSim includes the ability to compute carbon-silicate weathering, dynamic orography through the glacier module (though only accumulation and ablation/evaporation/melting are included; glacial flow and spreading are not), and storm climatology.
CMC-COSMIC models dense star clusters using Hénon's method using orbit-averaging collisional stellar dynamics. It includes all the relevant physics for modeling dense spherical star clusters, such as strong dynamical encounters, single and binary stellar evolution, central massive black holes, three-body binary formation, and relativistic dynamics, among others. CMC is parallelized using the Message Passing Interface (MPI), and is pinned to the COSMIC (ascl:2108.022) package for binary population synthesis, which itself was originally based on the version of BSE (ascl:1303.014). COSMIC is currently a submodule within CMC, ensuring that any cluster simulations or binary populations are integrated with the same physics.
Find_Orb takes a set of observations of an asteroid, comet, or natural or artificial satellite given in the MPC (Minor Planet Center) format, the ADES astrometric format, and/or the NEODyS or AstDyS formats, and finds the corresponding orbit.
Exodetbox provides mathematical methods for calculating the planet-star separation and difference in magnitude extrema as well as when planets have particular planet-star separations or differences in magnitude. The code also projects the 3D Keplerian Orbit into a reparameterized 2D ellipse in the plane of the sky. Exodetbox is implemented in the EXOSIMS modeling software (ascl:1706.010).
Nauyaca infers planetary masses and orbits from mid-transit times fitting. The code requires transit ephemeris per planet and stellar mass and radius, and uses minimization routines and a Markov chain Monte Carlo method to find planet parameters that best reproduce the transit times based on numerical simulations. The code package provides customized plotting tools for analyzing the results.
LEGWORK (LISA Evolution and Gravitational Wave ORbit Kit) is a simple package for gravitational wave calculations. It evolves binaries and computes signal-to-noise ratios for binary systems potentially observable with LISA; it also visualizes the results. LEGWORK can also compare different detector sensitivity curves, compute the horizon distance for a collection of sources, and tracks signal-to-noise evolution over time.
Nii implements an automatic parallel tempering Markov chain Monte Carlo (APT-MCMC) framework for sampling multidimensional posterior distributions and provides an observation simulation platform for the differential astrometric measurement of exoplanets. Although this code specifically focuses on the orbital parameter retrieval problem of differential astrometry, Nii can be applied to other scientific problems with different posterior distributions and offers many control parameters in the APT part to facilitate the adjustment of the MCMC sampling strategy; these include the number of parallel chains, the β values of different chains, the dynamic range of the sampling step sizes, and frequency of adjusting the step sizes.
GRIT (Gravitational Rigid-body InTegrators) simulaties the coupled dynamics of both spin and orbit of N gravitationally interacting rigid bodies. The code supports tidal forces and general relativity correction are supported, and multiple schemes with different orders of convergences and splitting strategies are available. Multiscale splittings boost the simulation speed, and force evaluations can be parallelized. In addition, each body can be set to be a rigid body or just a point mass, and the floating-point format can be customized as float, double, or long double globally.
MAMPOSSt (Modeling Anisotropy and Mass Profiles of Observed Spherical Systems) is a Bayesian code to perform mass/orbit modeling of spherical systems. It determines marginal parameter distributions and parameter covariances of parametrized radial distributions of dark or total matter, as well as the mass of a possible central black hole, and the radial profiles of density and velocity anisotropy of one or several tracer components, all of which are jointly fit to the discrete data in projected phase space. It is based upon the MAMPOSSt likelihood function for the distribution of individual tracers in projected phase space (projected radius and line-of-sight velocity) and the CosmoMC Markov Chain Monte Carlo code (ascl:1106.025), run in generic mode. MAMPOSSt is not based on the 6D distribution function (which would require triple integrals), but on the assumption that the local 3D velocity distribution is an (anisotropic) Gaussian (requiring only a single integral).
SimAb (Simulating Abundances) simulates planet formation, focusing on the atmosphere accretion of gas giant planets. The package can run the simulation in two different modes. The single simulation mode is run by specifying the initial conditions (the core mass, the initial orbital distance, the planetesimal ratio, and the dust grain fraction), and the mature planet mass and orbital distance. The multi run simulation mode requires specifying the mass and the final orbital distance of the mature planet; the simulation randomly assigns initial orbital distance, initial core mass, initial planetesimal ratio, and initial dust grain fraction. The package also provides Jupyter codes for plotting the results of the simulations.
maelstrom models binary orbits through the phase modulation technique. This set of custom PyMC3 models and solvers fit each individual datapoint in the time series by forward modeling the time delay onto the light curve. This approach fully captures variations in a light curve caused by an orbital companion.
The software used to transform the tabular USNO/AE98 asteroid ephemerides into a Chebyshev polynomial representations, and evaluate them at an arbitrary time is available. The USNO/AE98 consisted of the ephemerides of fifteen of the largest asteroids, and were used in The Astronomical Almanac from 2000 through 2015. These ephemerides are outdated and no longer available, but the software used to store and evaluate them is still available and provides a robust method for storing compact ephemerides of solar system bodies.
The object of the software is to provide a compact binary representation of solar system bodies with eccentric orbits, which can produce the body's position and velocity at an arbitrary instant within the ephemeris' time span. It uses a modification of the Newhall (1989) algorithm to achieve this objective. The Newhall algorithm is used to store both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory DE and the Institut de mécanique céleste et de calcul des éphémérides INPOP high accuracy planetary ephemerides. The Newhall algorithm breaks an ephemeris into a number time contiguous segments, and each segment is stored as a set of Chebyshev polynomial coefficients. The length of the time segments and the maximum degree Chebyshev polynomial coefficient is fixed for each body. This works well for bodies with small eccentricities, but it becomes inefficient for a body in a highly eccentric orbit. The time segment length and maximum order Chebyshev polynomial coefficient must be chosen to accommodate the strong curvature and fast motion near pericenter, while the body spends most of its time either moving slowly near apocenter or in the lower curvature mid-anomaly portions of its orbit. The solution is to vary the time segment length and maximum degree Chebyshev polynomial coefficient with the body's position. The portion of the software that converts tabular ephemerides into a Chebyshev polynomial representation (CPR) performs this compaction automatically, and the portion that evaluates that representation requires only a modest increase in the evaluation time.
The software also allows the user to choose the required tolerance of the CPR. Thus, if less accuracy is required a more compact, somewhat quicker to evaluate CPR can be manufactured and evaluated. Numerical tests show that a fractional precision of 4e-16 may be achieved, only a factor of 4 greater than the 1e-16 precision of a 64-bit IEEE (2019) compliant floating point number.
The software is written in C and designed to work with the C edition of the Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry Software (NOVAS). The programs may be used to convert tabular ephemerides of other solar system bodies as well. The included READ.ME file provides the details of the software and how to use it.
REFERENCES
IEEE Computer Society 2019, IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic. IEEE STD 754-2019, IEEE, pp. 1–84
Newhall, X X 1989, 'Numerical Representation of Planetary Ephemerides,' Celest. Mech., 45, 305 - 310
PyNAPLE (PYthon Nac Automated Pair Lunar Evaluator) detects changes and new impact craters on the lunar surface using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera (LRO NAC) images. The code enables large scale analyses of sub-kilometer scale cratering rates and refinement of both scaling laws and the luminous efficiency.
Synthetic Population of Interstellar Objects generates a synthetic population of interstellar objects (orbits and sizes) in arbitrary volume of space around the Sun. The only necessary assumption is that the population of ISOs in the interstellar space (far from any massive body) is homogeneous and isotropic. The assumed distribution of interstellar velocities of ISOs has to be provided as an input. This distribution can be defined analytically, but also in a discrete form. The algorithm, based on the multivariate inverse transform sampling method, is implemented in Python.
Burning Arrow determines the destabilization of massive particle circular orbits due to thermal radiation, emitted in X-ray, from the hot accretion disk material. This code requires the radiation forces exerted on the material at the point of interest found by running the code Infinity (ascl:2212.021). Burning Arrow begins by assuming a target particle in the disk that moves in a circular orbit. It then introduces the recorded radiation forces from Infinity code for the target region. The forces are subsequently introduced into the target particle equations of motion and the trajectory is recalculated. Burning Arrow then produces images of the black hole - accretion disk system that includes the degenerated particle trajectories that obey the assorted velocity profiles.
Deconfuser performs fast orbit fitting to directly imaged multi-planetary systems. It quickly fits orbits to planet detections in 2D images and ensures that all orbits within a certain tolerance are found. The code also tests all groupings of detections by planets (which detection belongs to which planet), and ranks partitions of detections by planets by deciding which assignment of detection-to-planet best fits the data.
AnalyticLC generates an analytic light-curve, and optionally RV and astrometry data, from a set of initial (free) orbital elements and simultaneously fits these data. Written in MATLAB, the code is fast and efficient, and provides insight into the motion of the orbital elements, which is difficult to obtain from numerical integration. A Python wrapper for AnalyticLC is available separately.
naif extracts frequencies and respective amplitudes from time-series, such as that of an orbital coordinate. Based on the Numerical Analysis of Fundamental Frequencies (NAFF) algorithm and written in Python, naif offers some improvements, particularly in computation time. It also offers functions to plot the power-spectrum before extraction of each frequency, which can be useful for debugging particular orbits.
ASSIST integrates test particle trajectories in the field of the Sun, Moon, planets, and massive asteroids, with the positions of the masses obtained from the JPL DE441 ephemeris and its associated asteroid perturber file. Using REBOUND's (ascl:1110.016) IAS15 integrator, ASSIST incorporates the most significant gravitational harmonics and general relativistic corrections and accounts for position- and velocity-dependent non-gravitational effects. The first-order variational equations are included for all terms to support orbit fitting and covariance mapping.
The N-body code TIDYMESS (TIdal DYnamics of Multi-body ExtraSolar Systems) can describe the mass distribution of each body its inertia tensor and directly and self-consistently integrates orbit, spin, and inertia tensors. It manages the deformation of a body follows the tidal Creep model and includes the centrifugal force and tidal force. Written in C++, TIDYMESS is available as a standalone package and also through the AMUSE framework (ascl:1107.007).
Planetary Ephemeris Program (PEP) computes numerical ephemerides and simultaneously analyzes a heterogeneous collection of astrometric data. Written in Fortran, it is a general-purpose astrometric data-analysis program and models orbital motion in the solar system, determines orbital initial conditions and planetary masses, and has been used to, for example, measure general relativistic effects and test physics theories beyond the standard model. PEP also models pulsar motions and distant radio sources, and can solve for sky coordinates for radio sources, plasma densities, and the second harmonic of the Sun's gravitational field.
Idefix solves non-relativistic HD and MHD equations on various grid geometries. Based on a Godunov finite-volume method, this astrophysical flows code includes a wide choice of solvers and several modules, including constrained transport, orbital advection, and non-ideal MHD, to address complex astrophysical and fluid dynamics applications. Written in C++, Idefix relies on the Kokkos meta-programming library to guarantee performance portability on a wide variety of architectures.
nuSpaceSim simulates upward-going extensive air showers caused by neutrino interactions with the atmosphere. It is an end-to-end, neutrino flux to space-based signal detection, modeling tool for the design of sub-orbital and space-based neutrino detection experiments. This comprehensive suite of modeling packages accepts an experimental design input and then models the experiment's sensitivity to both the diffuse, cosmogenic neutrino flux as well as astrophysical neutrino transient events, such as that postulated from binary neutron star (BNS) mergers. nuSpaceSim calculates the tau neutrino acceptance for the Optical Cherenkov technique; tau propagation is interpolated using included data tables from nupyprop (ascl:2306.044). The simulation is parameterized by an input XML configuration file, with settings for detector characteristics and global parameters; nuSpaceSim also provides a python API for programmatic access.
TidalPy performs semi-analytic calculations of tidal dissipation and subsequent orbit-spin evolution for rocky and icy worlds. It can be used as a black box, in which an Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) scheme performs many calculations with very little user input from the user, making it easy to get started with the package, or as a toolbox, as it contains many efficient functions to perform calculations relevant to tides and thermal-orbital coupling, which can be quickly imported and used in a custom scripts. In general, TidelPy's toolbox (functional) scheme provides much higher performance, flexibility, and extensibility than the OOP scheme. It also makes assumptions more visible to the user. The downside is the user may need to be more familiar with the underlying physics.
adiabatic-tides evaluates the tidal stripping of dark matter (sub)haloes in the adiabatic limit. It exactly reproduces the remnant of an NFW halo that is exposed to a slowly increasing isotropic tidal field and approximately reproduces the remnant for an anisotropic tidal field. adiabatic-tides also predicts the asymptotic mass loss limit for orbiting subhaloes and differently concentrated host-haloes with and without baryonic components, and can be used to improve predictions of dark matter annihilation.
Directly imaged planet candidates (high contrast point sources near bright stars) are often validated, among other supporting lines of evidence, by comparing their observed motion against the projected motion of a background source due to the proper motion of the bright star and the parallax motion due to the Earth's orbit. Often, the "background track" is constructed assuming an interloping point source is at infinity and has no proper motion itself, but this assumption can fail, producing false positive results, for crowded fields or insufficient observing time-baselines (e.g. Nielsen et al. 2017). `backtrack` is a tool for constructing background proper motion and parallax tracks for validation of high contrast candidates. It can produce classical infinite distance, stationary background tracks, but was constructed in order to fit finite distance, non-stationary tracks using nested sampling (and can be used on clusters). The code sets priors on parallax based on the relations in Bailer-Jones et al. 2021 that are fit to Gaia eDR3 data, and are therefore representative of the galactic stellar density. The public example currently reproduces the results of Nielsen et al. 2017 and Wagner et al. 2022, demonstrating that the motion of HD 131399A "b" is fit by a finite distance, non-stationary background star, but the code has been tested and validated on proprietary datasets. The code is open source, available on github, and additional contributions are welcome.
orbitN generates accurate and reproducible long-term orbital solutions for near-Keplerian planetary systems with a dominant mass M0. The code focuses on hierarchical systems without close encounters but can be extended to include additional features. Among other features, the package includes M0's quadrupole moment, a lunar contribution, and post-Newtonian corrections (1PN) due to M0 (fast symplectic implementation). To reduce numerical roundoff errors, orbitN features Kahan compensated summation.
MAGPy-RV (Modelling stellar Activity with Gaussian Processes in Radial Velocity) models data with Gaussian Process regression and affine invariant Monte Carlo Markov Chain parameter searching. Developed to model intrinsic, quasi-periodic variations induced by the host star in radial velocity (RV) surveys for the detection of exoplanets and the accurate measurements of their orbital parameters and masses, it now includes a variety of kernels and models and can be applied to any timeseries analysis. MAGPy-RV includes publication level plotting, efficient posterior extraction, and export-ready LaTeX results tables. It also handles multiple datasets at once and can model offsets and systematics from multiple instruments. MAGPy-RV requires no external dependencies besides basic python libraries and corner (ascl:1702.002).
The numerical code RoSSBi3D (Rotating Systems Simulation Code for Bi-fluids) is designed for protoplanetary discs study at 2D and 3D. It is a finite volume code which is second order in time, features self-gravity (2D), and uses an exact Riemann solver to account for discontinuities. This FORTRAN 90 code solves the fully compressible inviscid Euler, continuity and energy conservation equations in polar coordinates for an ideal gas orbiting a central object. Solid particles are treated as a pressureless fluid and interact with the gas through aerodynamic forces. The code works on high performance computers thanks to the MPI standard (CPU).
LUNA generates dynamically accurate lightcurves from a planet-moon pair, analytically accounting for shadow overlaps, stellar limb darkening, and planet-moon dynamical motion. The code takes transit timing/duration variations and ingress/egress asymmetries into consideration not only for the planet, but also the moon. LUNA was designed to be analytical and dynamical and to incorporate limb darkening (including non-linear laws) and account for all orbital elements, including eccentricity and longitude of the ascending node. Because the software is precise and analytic, LUNA is a highly potent tool for exomoon detection.
star_shadow automatically analyzes space based light curves of eclipsing binaries and provide a measurement of eccentricity, among other parameters. It measures the timings of eclipses using the time derivatives of the light curves, using a model of orbital harmonics obtained from an initial iterative prewhitening of sinusoids. Since the algorithm extracts the harmonics from the rest of the sinusoidal variability eclipse timings can be measured even in the presence of other (astrophysical) signals, thus determining the orbital eccentricity automatically from the light curve along with information about the other variability present in the light curve. The output includes, but is not limited to, a sinusoid plus linear model of the light curve, the orbital period, the eccentricity, argument of periastron, and inclination.
Swiftest is a software package designed to model the long-term dynamics of system of bodies in orbit around a dominant central body, such a planetary system around a star, or a satellite system around a planet. The main body of the program is written in Modern Fortran, taking advantage of the object-oriented capabilities included with Fortran 2003 and the parallel capabilities included with Fortran 2008 and Fortran 2018. Swiftest also includes a Python package that allows the user to quickly generate input, run simulations, and process output from the simulations. Swiftest uses a NetCDF output file format which makes data analysis with the Swiftest Python package a streamlined and flexible process for the user. Building off a strong legacy, including its predecessors Swifter and Swift, Swiftest takes the next step in modeling the dynamics of planetary systems by improving the performance and ease of use of software, and by introducing a new collisional fragmentation model. Currently, Swiftest includes the four main symplectic integrators included in its predecessors: WHM, RMVS, HELIO, and SyMBA. In addition, Swiftest also contains the Fraggle model for generating products of collisional fragmentation.
BELTCROSS2 calculates the closest approaches of asteroid to the mean orbits of meteoroid streams. It is especially useful to check if an asteroid, which was observed to become active, passed through a meteoroid stream, and through which stream, a short time before the beginning of the activity. The basic characteristics of the closest encounter of the asteroid with the stream are provided by BELTCROSS2.
Sailfish simulates accreting binary systems, including binary protostars, post-AGN stellar binaries, mass-transferring X-ray binaries, and double black hole systems. The binary components are "on the grid" rather than excised, and are evolved according to the Kepler two-body problem, modified to account for gravitational wave losses or self-consistent forcing from the orbiting gas. The solvers are shock-capturing and are second order accurate in space and time. Gravity is fully Newtonian. Thermodynamics can be treated using a gamma-law equation of state with a blackbody cooling term, or in the locally isothermal approximation, in which the gas temperature is set to a constant times the local free-fall speed. Sailfish is fully Cartesian and has extensive diagnostic capabilities to facilitate accurate calculations of gas-driven orbital evolution or the extraction of electromagnetic disk signatures. The code is extremely efficient, reaching more than one billion zone updates per second on an NVIDIA A100 GPU, enabling extremely high resolution of complex flows around the binary components.
The kete tools are intended to enable the simulation of all-sky surveys of solar system objects. This includes multi-body physics orbital dynamics, thermal and optical modeling of the objects, as well as field of view and light delay corrections. These tools in conjunction with the Minor Planet Centers (MPC) database of known asteroids can be used to not only plan surveys but can also be used to predict what objects are visible for existing or past surveys.
The primary goal for kete is to enable a set of tools that can operate on the entire MPC catalog at once, without having to do queries on specific objects. It has been used to simulate over 10 years of survey time for the NEO Surveyor mission using 10 million main-belt and near-Earth asteroids.
Extensible spacetime agnostic general relativistic ray-tracing (GRRT): Gradus.jl is a suite of tools related to tracing geodesics and calculating observational signatures of accreting compact objects. Gradus.jl requires only a specification of the non-zero metric components of a chosen spacetime in order to solve the geodesic equation and compute a wide variety of trajectories and orbits. Various algorithms for calculating physical quantities are implemented generically, so they may be used with different classes of spacetime with minimal effort.
IcyDwarf calculates the coupled physical-chemical evolution of an icy dwarf planet or moon. The code calculates the thermal evolution of an icy planetary body (moon or dwarf planet), with no chemistry, but with rock hydration, dehydration, hydrothermal circulation, core cracking, tidal heating, and porosity; the depth of cracking and a bulk water:rock ratio by mass in the rocky core are also computed. It also calculates whether cryovolcanism is possible by the exsolution of volatiles from cryolavas. IcyDwarf also determines the equilibrium fluid and rock chemistries resulting from water-rock interaction in subsurface oceans in contact with a rocky core, up to 200ºC and 1000 bar.
Twinkle is a Python-based tool that calculates the stellar spectral energy distribution (SED) using empirical photometric data and stellar model grids.
Twinkle was originally created to help calculate the excess infrared (IR) flux from a star. The presence of an IR excess indicates dust orbiting the star. This dust likely results from the grinding and collisions of asteroids, influenced by a larger planetary object—pointing to the potential for finding planets. You can check out the published papers from my thesis using this code in Patel, Metchev, and Heinze, 2014 and Patel et al., 2017.
Interested in learning more about debris disks? Check out my blog post.
This code base helps you quickly calculate the temperature and location of the dust to first order by fitting the assumed blackbody or modified blackbody function to the broadband excess emission.