The MU Lab develops tools for studies of resolved stellar populations in the Milky Way, microlensing, orbits, and high-precision astrometry from space-based telescopes and with adaptive optics on ground-based telescopes. Some of our tools are listed below.
SPISEA (docs) is an python package that generates single-age, single-metallicity populations (i.e. star clusters). It gives the user control over many parameters:
Cluster characteristics (age, metallicity, mass, distance)
Total extinction, differential extinction, and extinction law
Stellar evolution and atmosphere models
Stellar multiplicity and Initial Mass Function
Initial-Final Mass Relation
Photometric filters
Here is a brief list of things that SPISEA can do:
make a cluster isochrone in many filters using different stellar models
make a star cluster at any age with an unusual IMF and multiplicity
make a spectrum of a star cluster in integrated light
PopSyCLE is a python add-on to the Galaxia modeling code that will make a fake Milky Way populated with stars, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. The synthetic population can be “observed” for microlensing events.
Running galaxia-v3 and run.py on PopSyCLE
The KAI (Keck AO Imager) Imager Pipeline is a python-based (with IRAF dependencies) data reduction pipeline for the NIRC2 and OSIRIS adaptive optics imagers at the W. M. Keck Observatory. This pipeline was built to construct images of star fields to be used for high-precision photometry and astrometry. It does typical image reduction tasks as well as correcting for differential atmospheric refraction, instrumental distortions, and unique instrumental aspects of each instrument (e.g. noisy columns in NIRC2). When combined with StarFinder or AIROPA, this pipeline will also extract positions and fluxes from the images. The code is currently still in alpha-testing.
FlyStar is a tool for cross-matching and transforming starlists for high-precision astrometry projects. It is currently under development and alpha-testing.
AIROPA is a source extraction package to handle Anisoplanatic and Instrumental Reconstruction of Off-Axis PSFs for AO.
BAGLE allows modeling of gravitational microlensing events both photometrically and astrometrically. Supported microlensing models include:
PSPL: point-source, point-lens with parallax
PSBL: point-source, binary-lens
FSPL: finite-source, point-lens (currently testing further)
All models support fitting data with single or multi-band photometry only, astrometry only, or joint fitting of photometry and astrometry (recommended).