Generating synthetic star catalogs from simulated data for next-gen observatories with py-ananke

Abstract

We find ourselves on the brink of an exciting era in observational astrophysics, driven by groundbreaking facilities like JWST, Euclid, Rubin, Roman, SKA, or ELT. Simultaneously, computational astrophysics has shown significant strides, yielding highly realistic galaxy formation simulations, thanks to both hardware and software enhancements. Bridging the gap between simulations and observations has become paramount for meaningful comparisons. We introduce py-ananke, a Python pipeline designed to generate synthetic resolved stellar surveys from cosmological simulations, adaptable to various instruments. Building upon its predecessor, ananke by Sanderson et al. 2020 (arXiv:1806.10564), which produced Gaia DR2 mock star surveys, the py-ananke package offers a user-friendly "plug & play" experience. The pipeline employs cutting-edge phase-space density estimation and initial mass function sampling to convert particle data into synthetic stars, while interpolating pre-computed stellar isochrone tracks for photometry. Additionally, it includes modules for estimating interstellar reddening, dust-induced extinctions, and for quantifying errors through dedicated modeling approaches. py-ananke promises to serve as a vital bridge between computational astrophysics and observational astronomy, facilitating preparations and making scientific predictions for the next generation of telescopes.

12 pages (6 pages of bibliography) and 1 figure. Software repository at https://github.com/athob/py-ananke

References in corpus (25)

• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• Gaia Data Release 3: Summary of the content and survey properties
• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• The James Webb Space Telescope
• The Dark Energy Camera
• A new generation of PARSEC-COLIBRI stellar isochrones including the TP-AGB phase
• Reconciling dwarf galaxies with LCDM cosmology: Simulating a realistic population of satellites around a Milky Way-mass galaxy
• A Comprehensive Study on Galaxies at z~9-16 Found in the Early JWST Data: UV Luminosity Functions and Cosmic Star-Formation History at the Pre-Reionization Epoch
• CEERS Key Paper I: An Early Look into the First 500 Myr of Galaxy Formation with JWST
• The Dark Energy Survey Data Release 1
• Galaxia: a code to generate a synthetic survey of the Milky Way
• The Dark Energy Survey Data Release 2
• Discovery and properties of ultra-high redshift galaxies ($9<z<12$) in the JWST ERO SMACS 0723 Field
• The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope: 100 Hubbles for the 2020s
• Panic! At the Disks: First Rest-frame Optical Observations of Galaxy Structure at $z>3$ with JWST in the SMACS 0723 Field
• Hydrodynamical simulations of the galaxy population: enduring successes and outstanding challenges
• Synthetic Gaia surveys from the FIRE cosmological simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies
• Overview of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES)
• Multi-Dimensional Density Estimation and Phase Space Structure Of Dark Matter Halos
• Streams on FIRE: Populations of Detectable Stellar Streams in the Milky Way and FIRE
• Cataloging Accreted Stars within Gaia DR2 using Deep Learning
• Recommendations for Early Definition Science with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
• NANCY: Next-generation All-sky Near-infrared Community surveY
• Mapping Interstellar Dust with Gaussian Processes
• RomAndromeda: The Roman Survey of the Andromeda Halo