Software

SimPolar

SimPolar is a set of routines to build simulated polarized thermal dust emission maps from MHD cubes, at any given frequency. They are available here but do not come with documentation yet, so contact me if you need help.

S3 Tools

WarningWarning to users

⚠️ This software was developed more than a decade ago for the SKA Simulated Skies (S3) simulations produced at the University of Oxford within the framework of the SKADS programme. The website hosting these simulations is no longer accessible, and this software is most likely obsolete and may not work with modern Python environments. It is kept here for archival purposes only.

The S3 Tools are a set of Python routines designed to provide convenient access to the SKA Simulated Skies (S3) simulations. They allow users to transform query results from the S3 databases into maps and spectral data cubes for further analysis.

Features

The S3 Tools allow users to:

  • read results from S3 database queries
  • generate simulated radio maps
  • build spectral data cubes
  • combine several astrophysical components (HI, CO, continuum, Galactic emission, etc.)

Documentation

Requirements

The software requires a standard scientific Python environment. Typical dependencies include:

  • numpy
  • scipy
  • matplotlib
  • pyfits
  • PIL
  • Tkinter

Standard Python modules such as os, sys, math, time, and random are also used.

Installation

  1. Download the archive:

  2. Uncompress the archive:

tar xzf S3Tools.tgz
  1. Run the installation script:
python install.py

The installation script checks the availability of the required Python packages and warns the user if some are missing.

Configuration

Assume the tools are installed in

~/S3Tools/

with the following structure:

S3Tools/
  Config/
  Doc/
  Output/
  Routines/
  Tmp/

You should edit the file

Config/Config_Path.py

and set:

S3TOOLS_PATH = ~/S3Tools/

Simulation Templates

Several astrophysical templates can be used with the S3 Tools.

HI and CO templates (Oxford)

Templates for HI and CO emission of galaxies developed by Danail Obreschkow.

Steps:

  1. Download SAX_templates.tgz
  2. Extract the archive
  3. Set
SAX_TEMPLATES_DIR

in Config_Path.py.

If you have an older (predating March 2011) installation of these templates, you need to create a subdirectory named FITS/ into which FITS files for the templates will be placed. The original template files are ascii (under the ascii/ subdirectory) but they take a while to load into arrays, much longer than when read from FITS files. Consequently, when making SAX cubes, the script first looks for a FITS file, and uses that if it can find it. Otherwse, it uses the ascii file and takes the opportunity to convert it to FITS and save it under FITS/ for future use. The downside of that is that FITS files take up a much bigger disk space than ascii files.

HI templates (Kapteyn Institute)

HI galaxy templates developed by Rense Boomsma.

Steps:

  1. Download KI_templates.tgz
  2. Extract the archive
  3. Set
KAPTEYN_TEMPLATES_DIR

in Config_Path.py.

Continuum templates (MPIfR)

Templates for radio continuum emission in Stokes I, Q, U developed by Tigran Arshakian.

Steps:

  1. Download MPIFR.tgz
  2. Extract the archive
  3. Set
MPIFR_TEMPLATES_DIR

in Config_Path.py.

Global Sky Model

Galactic emission model based on the work of de Oliveira-Costa et al. (2008).
Note that this is now superseded by PyGDSM

Steps:

  1. Download the GSM package
  2. Extract it
  3. Set
GSM_DIR

in Config_Path.py.

Then compile the provided gsm.f file.

Epoch of Reionization model

Simulations of the EoR signal produced by Mario Santos.

Steps:

  1. Download EoR-Lisbon.tgz
  2. Extract it
  3. Set
IST_EOR_TEMPLATES_DIR

in Config_Path.py.