The IMF package: a toolkit implementing mass functions and statistical tools to analyze them

Abstract

Mass functions are used in all areas of astrophysics. The stellar initial mass function (IMF), in particular, plays a central role in modeling stellar populations in galaxies. However, few dedicated tools for working directly with the IMF and its precursor functions are widely available. We present the $\text{imf}$ package, a Python library integrated into the wider scientific Python ecosystem that implements common and variant forms of mass functions, especially the IMF and its pre- and protostellar equivalents, as probability distribution functions based on SciPy's statistics architecture. This package enables the performance of operations such as sampling and integration on a wide array of highly customizable mass functions. $\text{imf}$ is publicly available on the Python package index $\text{pypi}$ under the project name $\texttt{initial_mass_function}$.

18 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Includes appendix: 3 pages, 1 figure. To be published in AJ. imf is accessible on pypi at https://pypi.org/project/initial-mass-function and has a GitHub repository at https://github.com/keflavich/imf