Synspec

Introduction

Synspec is a generical stellar spectral synthesis package that can be run from python. It’s essentially a redistribution of the Synspec synthesis software by Ivan Hubeny and Thierry Lanz from Carlos Allende-Prieto’s synple package. There is also a Python wrapper/driver based on the synple package and some code from Jon Holtzman in the APOGEE package. The setup.py file has also been modified to automatically compile the Fortran code and copy them to the user’s python scripts directory. This reused code written by Andy Casey in his moog package.

Description

To run Synspec you need 1) a model atmosphere, 2) a linelist (or multiple), and 3) the set of stellar parameters and elemental abundances that you want to run.

  1. Model Atmospheres

    Synspec can read TLUSTY, Kurucz/ATLAS, MARCS and PHOENIX model atmospheres. See page 10 in the Synspec manual for the format and examples.

  2. Linelists

    Synspec requires a specific linelist format. See pages 9-10 in the Synspec manual for the format.

  3. Stellar parameters and elemental abundances.

    The main stellar parameters are Teff, logg, [M/H], and [alpha/M]. These are the first four parameters in the main synthesis.synthesize() function. The individual elements abundances are given in the elems parameters as a list of [element name, abundance] pairs, where abundance in the in [X/M] format relative to the overall metallicity.

More details on how the Fortran MOOG code works can be found in the syn43guide.pdf documentation.

Examples

Index