Welcome to galpy’s documentation

galpy is a Python 2 and 3 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.

Quick-start guide

Acknowledging galpy

If you use galpy in a publication, please cite the following paper

  • galpy: A Python Library for Galactic Dynamics, Jo Bovy (2015), Astrophys. J. Supp., 216, 29 (arXiv/1412.3451).

and link to http://github.com/jobovy/galpy. Some of the code’s functionality is introduced in separate papers (like galpy.df.streamdf and galpy.df.streamgapdf, see below), so please also cite those papers when using these functions. Please also send me a reference to the paper or send a pull request including your paper in the list of galpy papers on this page (this page is at doc/source/index.rst). Thanks!

When using the galpy.actionAngle.actionAngleAdiabatic and galpy.actionAngle.actionAngleStaeckel modules, please cite 2013ApJ…779..115B in addition to the papers describing the algorithm used. When using galpy.actionAngle.actionAngleIsochroneApprox, please cite 2014ApJ…795…95B, which introduced this technique.

Papers using galpy

galpy is described in detail in this publication:

  • galpy: A Python Library for Galactic Dynamics, Jo Bovy (2015), Astrophys. J. Supp., 216, 29 (2015ApJS..216…29B).

The following is a list of publications using galpy; please let me (bovy at astro dot utoronto dot ca) know if you make use of galpy in a publication.

  1. Tracing the Hercules stream around the Galaxy, Jo Bovy (2010), Astrophys. J. 725, 1676 (2010ApJ…725.1676B):
    Uses what later became the orbit integration routines and Dehnen and Shu disk distribution functions.
  2. The spatial structure of mono-abundance sub-populations of the Milky Way disk, Jo Bovy, Hans-Walter Rix, Chao Liu, et al. (2012), Astrophys. J. 753, 148 (2012ApJ…753..148B):
    Employs galpy orbit integration in galpy.potential.MWPotential to characterize the orbits in the SEGUE G dwarf sample.
  3. On the local dark matter density, Jo Bovy & Scott Tremaine (2012), Astrophys. J. 756, 89 (2012ApJ…756…89B):
    Uses galpy.potential force and density routines to characterize the difference between the vertical force and the surface density at large heights above the MW midplane.
  4. The Milky Way’s circular velocity curve between 4 and 14 kpc from APOGEE data, Jo Bovy, Carlos Allende Prieto, Timothy C. Beers, et al. (2012), Astrophys. J. 759, 131 (2012ApJ…759..131B):
    Utilizes the Dehnen distribution function to inform a simple model of the velocity distribution of APOGEE stars in the Milky Way disk and to create mock data.
  5. A direct dynamical measurement of the Milky Way’s disk surface density profile, disk scale length, and dark matter profile at 4 kpc < R < 9 kpc, Jo Bovy & Hans-Walter Rix (2013), Astrophys. J. 779, 115 (2013ApJ…779..115B):
    Makes use of potential models, the adiabatic and Staeckel actionAngle modules, and the quasiisothermal DF to model the dynamics of the SEGUE G dwarf sample in mono-abundance bins.
  6. The peculiar pulsar population of the central parsec, Jason Dexter & Ryan M. O’Leary (2013), Astrophys. J. Lett., 783, L7 (2014ApJ…783L…7D):
    Uses galpy for orbit integration of pulsars kicked out of the Galactic center.
  7. Chemodynamics of the Milky Way. I. The first year of APOGEE data, Friedrich Anders, Christina Chiappini, Basilio X. Santiago, et al. (2013), Astron. & Astrophys., 564, A115 (2014A&A…564A.115A):
    Employs galpy to perform orbit integrations in galpy.potential.MWPotential to characterize the orbits of stars in the APOGEE sample.
  8. Dynamical modeling of tidal streams, Jo Bovy (2014), Astrophys. J., 795, 95 (2014ApJ…795…95B):
    Introduces galpy.df.streamdf and galpy.actionAngle.actionAngleIsochroneApprox for modeling tidal streams using simple models formulated in action-angle space (see the tutorial above).
  9. The Milky Way Tomography with SDSS. V. Mapping the Dark Matter Halo, Sarah R. Loebman, Zeljko Ivezic Thomas R. Quinn, Jo Bovy, Charlotte R. Christensen, Mario Juric, Rok Roskar, Alyson M. Brooks, & Fabio Governato (2014), Astrophys. J., 794, 151 (2014ApJ…794..151L):
    Uses galpy.potential functions to calculate the acceleration field of the best-fit potential in Bovy & Rix (2013) above.
  10. The Proper Motion of the Galactic Center Pulsar Relative to Sagittarius A*, Geoffrey C. Bower, Adam Deller, Paul Demorest, et al. (2015), Astrophys. J., 798, 120 (2015ApJ…798..120B):
    Utilizes galpy.orbit integration in Monte Carlo simulations of the possible origin of the pulsar PSR J1745-2900 near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
  11. The power spectrum of the Milky Way: Velocity fluctuations in the Galactic disk, Jo Bovy, Jonathan C. Bird, Ana E. Garcia Perez, Steven M. Majewski, David L. Nidever, & Gail Zasowski (2015), Astrophys. J., 800, 83 (2015ApJ…800…83B):
    Uses galpy.df.evolveddiskdf to calculate the mean non-axisymmetric velocity field due to different non-axisymmetric perturbations and compares it to APOGEE data.
  12. The LMC geometry and outer stellar populations from early DES data, Eduardo Balbinot, B. X. Santiago, L. Girardi, et al. (2015), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 449, 1129 (2015MNRAS.449.1129B):
    Employs galpy.potential.MWPotential as a mass model for the Milky Way to constrain the mass of the LMC.
  13. Generation of mock tidal streams, Mark A. Fardal, Shuiyao Huang, & Martin D. Weinberg (2015), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 452, 301 (2015MNRAS.452..301F):
    Uses galpy.potential and galpy.orbit for orbit integration in creating a particle-spray model for tidal streams.
  14. The nature and orbit of the Ophiuchus stream, Branimir Sesar, Jo Bovy, Edouard J. Bernard, et al. (2015), Astrophys. J., 809, 59 (2015ApJ…809…59S):
    Uses the Orbit.fit routine in galpy.orbit to fit the orbit of the Ophiuchus stream to newly obtained observational data and the routines in galpy.df.streamdf to model the creation of the stream.
  15. Young Pulsars and the Galactic Center GeV Gamma-ray Excess, Ryan M. O’Leary, Matthew D. Kistler, Matthew Kerr, & Jason Dexter (2015), Phys. Rev. Lett., submitted (arXiv/1504.02477):
    Uses galpy orbit integration and galpy.potential.MWPotential2014 as part of a Monte Carlo simulation of the Galactic young-pulsar population.
  16. Phase Wrapping of Epicyclic Perturbations in the Wobbly Galaxy, Alexander de la Vega, Alice C. Quillen, Jeffrey L. Carlin, Sukanya Chakrabarti, & Elena D’Onghia (2015), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 454, 933 (2015MNRAS.454..933D):
    Employs galpy orbit integration, galpy.potential functions, and galpy.potential.MWPotential2014 to investigate epicyclic motions induced by the pericentric passage of a large dwarf galaxy and how these motions give rise to streaming motions in the vertical velocities of Milky Way disk stars.
  17. Chemistry of the Most Metal-poor Stars in the Bulge and the z ≳ 10 Universe, Andrew R. Casey & Kevin C. Schlaufman (2015), Astrophys. J., 809, 110 (2015ApJ…809..110C):
    This paper employs galpy orbit integration in MWPotential to characterize the orbits of three very metal-poor stars in the Galactic bulge.
  18. The Phoenix stream: a cold stream in the Southern hemisphere, E. Balbinot, B. Yanny, T. S. Li, et al. (2015), Astrophys. J., 820, 58 (2016ApJ…820…58B).
  19. Discovery of a Stellar Overdensity in Eridanus-Phoenix in the Dark Energy Survey, T. S. Li, E. Balbinot, N. Mondrik, et al. (2015), Astrophys. J., 817, 135 (2016ApJ…817..135L):
    Both of these papers use galpy orbit integration to integrate the orbit of NGC 1261 to investigate a possible association of this cluster with the newly discovered Phoenix stream and Eridanus-Phoenix overdensity.
  20. The Proper Motion of Palomar 5, T. K. Fritz & N. Kallivayalil (2015), Astrophys. J., 811, 123 (2015ApJ…811..123F):
    This paper makes use of the galpy.df.streamdf model for tidal streams to constrain the Milky Way’s gravitational potential using the kinematics of the Palomar 5 cluster and stream.
  21. Spiral- and bar-driven peculiar velocities in Milky Way-sized galaxy simulations, Robert J. J. Grand, Jo Bovy, Daisuke Kawata, Jason A. S. Hunt, Benoit Famaey, Arnaud Siebert, Giacomo Monari, & Mark Cropper (2015), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 453, 1867 (2015MNRAS.453.1867G):
    Uses galpy.df.evolveddiskdf to calculate the mean non-axisymmetric velocity field due to the bar in different parts of the Milky Way.
  22. Vertical kinematics of the thick disc at 4.5 ≲ R ≲ 9.5 kpc, Kohei Hattori & Gerard Gilmore (2015), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 454, 649 (2015MNRAS.454..649H):
    This paper uses galpy.potential functions to set up a realistic Milky-Way potential for investigating the kinematics of stars in the thick disk.
  23. Local Stellar Kinematics from RAVE data - VI. Metallicity Gradients Based on the F-G Main-sequence Stars, O. Plevne, T. Ak, S. Karaali, S. Bilir, S. Ak, Z. F. Bostanci (2015), Pub. Astron. Soc. Aus., 32, 43 (2015PASA…32…43P):
    This paper employs galpy orbit integration in MWPotential2014 to calculate orbital parameters for a sample of RAVE F and G dwarfs to investigate the metallicity gradient in the Milky Way.
  24. Dynamics of stream-subhalo interactions, Jason L. Sanders, Jo Bovy, & Denis Erkal (2015), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 457, 3817 (2016MNRAS.457.3817S):
    Uses and extends galpy.df.streamdf to build a generative model of the dynamical effect of sub-halo impacts on tidal streams. This new functionality is contained in galpy.df.streamgapdf, a subclass of galpy.df.streamdf, and can be used to efficiently model the effect of impacts on the present-day structure of streams in position and velocity space.
  25. Extremely metal-poor stars from the cosmic dawn in the bulge of the Milky Way, L. M. Howes, A. R. Casey, M. Asplund, et al. (2015), Nature, 527, 484 (2015Natur.527..484H):
    Employs galpy orbit integration in MWPotential2014 to characterize the orbits of a sample of extremely metal-poor stars found in the bulge of the Milky Way. This analysis demonstrates that the orbits of these metal-poor stars are always close to the center of the Milky Way and that these stars are therefore true bulge stars rather than halo stars passing through the bulge.
  26. Detecting the disruption of dark-matter halos with stellar streams, Jo Bovy (2016), Phys. Rev. Lett., 116, 121301 (2016PhRvL.116l1301B):
    Uses galpy functions in galpy.df to estimate the velocity kick imparted by a disrupting dark-matter halo on a stellar stream. Also employs galpy.orbit integration and galpy.actionAngle functions to analyze N-body simulations of such an interaction.
  27. Identification of Globular Cluster Stars in RAVE data II: Extended tidal debris around NGC 3201, B. Anguiano, G. M. De Silva, K. Freeman, et al. (2016), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 457, 2078 (2016MNRAS.457.2078A):
    Employs galpy.orbit integration to study the orbits of potential tidal-debris members of NGC 3201.
  28. Young and Millisecond Pulsar GeV Gamma-ray Fluxes from the Galactic Center and Beyond, Ryan M. O’Leary, Matthew D. Kistler, Matthew Kerr, & Jason Dexter (2016), Phys. Rev. D, submitted (arXiv/1601.05797):
    Uses galpy.orbit integration in MWPotential2014 for orbit integration of pulsars kicked out of the central region of the Milky Way.
  29. Abundances and kinematics for ten anticentre open clusters, T. Cantat-Gaudin, P. Donati, A. Vallenari, R. Sordo, A. Bragaglia, L. Magrini (2016), Astron. & Astrophys., 588, A120 (2016A&A…588A.120C):
    Uses galpy.orbit integration in MWPotential2014 to characterize the orbits of 10 open clusters located toward the Galactic anti-center, finding that the most distant clusters have high-eccentricity orbits.
  30. A Magellanic Origin of the DES Dwarfs, P. Jethwa, D. Erkal, & V. Belokurov (2016), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., submitted (arXiv/1603.04420):
    Employs the C implementations of galpy.potentials to compute forces in orbit integrations of the LMC’s satellite-galaxy population.
  31. PSR J1024-0719: A Millisecond Pulsar in an Unusual Long-Period Orbit, D. L. Kaplan, T. Kupfer, D. J. Nice, et al. (2016), Astrophys. J., submitted (arXiv/1604.00131):
  32. A millisecond pulsar in an extremely wide binary system, C. G. Bassa, G. H. Janssen, B. W. Stappers, et al. (2016), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., submitted (arXiv/1604.00129):
    Both of these papers use galpy.orbit integration in MWPotential2014 to determine the orbit of the milli-second pulsar PSR J1024−0719, a pulsar in an unusual binary system.
  33. The first low-mass black hole X-ray binary identified in quiescence outside of a globular cluster, B. E. Tetarenko, A. Bahramian, R. M. Arnason, et al. (2016), Astrophys. J., in press (arXiv/1605.00270):
    This paper employs galpy.orbit integration of orbits within the position-velocity uncertainty ellipse of the radio source VLA J213002.08+120904 to help characterize its nature (specifically, to rule out that it is a magnetar based on its birth location).
  34. Action-based Dynamical Modelling for the Milky Way Disk, Wilma H. Trick, Jo Bovy, & Hans-Walter Rix (2016), Astrophys. J., in press (arXiv/1605.08601):
    Makes use of potential models, the Staeckel actionAngle modules, and the quasiisothermal DF to develop a robust dynamical modeling approach for recovering the Milky Way’s gravitational potential from kinematics of disk stars.
  35. A Dipole on the Sky: Predictions for Hypervelocity Stars from the Large Magellanic Cloud, Douglas Boubert & N. W. Evans (2016), Astrophys. J. Lett., in press (arXiv/1606.02548):
    Uses galpy.orbit integration to investigate the orbits of hyper-velocity stars that could be ejected from the Large Magellanic Cloud and their distribution on the sky.
  36. Linear perturbation theory for tidal streams and the small-scale CDM power spectrum, Jo Bovy, Denis Erkal, & Jason L. Sanders (2016), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., submitted (arXiv/1606.03470):
    Uses and extends galpy.df.streamdf and galpy.df.streamgapdf to quickly compute the effect of impacts from dark-matter subhalos on stellar streams and investigates the structure of perturbed streams and how this structure relates to the CDM subhalo mass spectrum.
  37. Local Stellar Kinematics from RAVE data - VII. Metallicity Gradients from Red Clump Stars, O. Onal Tas, S. Bilir, G. M. Seabroke, S. Karaali, S. Ak, T. Ak, & Z. F. Bostanci, Pub. Astron. Soc. Aus., in press (arXiv/1607.07049):
    Employs galpy orbit integration in MWPotential2014 to calculate orbital parameters for a sample of red clump stars in RAVE to investigate the metallicity gradient in the Milky Way.
  38. Study of Eclipsing Binary and Multiple Systems in OB Associations IV: Cas OB6 Member DN Cas, V. Bakis, H. Bakis, S. Bilir, Z. Eker, Pub. Astron. Soc. Aus., in press (arXiv/1608.00456):
    Uses galpy orbit integration in MWPotential2014 to calculate the orbit and orbital parameters of the spectroscopic binary DN Cas in the Milky Way.

Indices and tables