Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: A typical problem in astronomy is that, for most of our observations, we are restricted to the plane of the sky.As a result, these observations are always mere projections containing only partial information about the observed object.Luckily, some frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum are optically thin, such that we receive radiation from the entire medium along the line of sight.This means that, at least in principle, from the observed radiation, we can extract information about the physical and chemical conditions along the entire line of sight.This is especially the case for spectral line radiation caused by transitions between the quantized energy levels of atoms and molecules.Rotational transition lines are particularly interesting, since they are excited in many astrophysical environments and can easily be resolved individually.Using spectral line observations, we can infer information about physical and chemical parameters, such as abundance of certain molecules, velocity, and temperature distributions.To facilitate this, we built a Python package, called pomme, that helps users reconstruct 1D spherically symmetric or generic 3D models, based on astronomical spectral line observations.A detailed description and validation of the methods can be found in De Ceuster et al. (2024).
DOI: 10.21105/joss.07321
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Awards: G204816320, Understanding the birth of new elements by observing dying stars, G3002814323, Beyond the Treachery of Images: training an algorithm to turn astronomical observations into probabilistic models, ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions, G5061147345, G5328246531, G6538146699, ATOMIUM: ALMA Tracing the Origins of Molecules formIng dUst in oxygen-rich M-type stars, G7316994847, Probabilistically modelling the birth and death of stars: changing the game with fast and precise emulation-enabled radiative cooling, G8587079691
OpenAlex ID: W4405209956