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Welcome to galpy’s documentation

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.

Papers using galpy

Please let me (bovy -at- ias.edu) know if you make use of galpy in a publication.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Chemodynamics of the Milky Way. I. The first year of APOGEE data, Friedrich Anders, Christina Chiappini, Basilio X. Santiago, et al. (2013), Astron. & Astrophys. submitted (arXiv/1311.4549):

    Employs galpy to perform orbit integrations in galpy.potential.MWPotential to characterize the orbits of stars in the APOGEE sample.

Acknowledging galpy

Please link back to http://github.com/jobovy/galpy . When using the galpy.actionAngle modules, please cite 2013ApJ...779..115B in addition to the papers describing the algorithm used. When orbit integrations are used, you could cite 2010ApJ...725.1676B (first galpy paper).

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