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| healpy | |
|---|---|
| Name | healpy |
| Programming language | Python, C, Fortran |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| License | BSD-like |
healpy
healpy is a Python package for analysis and visualization of spherical data, particularly designed for full-sky maps and power spectra. It provides bindings to a low-level C/Fortran library and integrates with scientific Python ecosystems used in astrophysics and cosmology. healpy is widely applied in projects involving microwave background observations, radio surveys, and large-scale structure studies.
healpy implements algorithms for discretizing the sphere and manipulating maps using a hierarchical equal-area pixelization scheme developed for cosmic microwave background analysis. The package wraps a core library originally developed for high-resolution sky analysis and interacts with software commonly used in observational cosmology and astrophysical data reduction. healpy is used alongside instruments and collaborations that produce full-sky datasets and power spectrum estimates.
healpy supplies a suite of functions for spherical harmonic transforms, map visualization, coordinate rotations, and statistical estimators. It supports operations such as map smoothing, convolution with beam kernels, and masking for foreground removal typical in microwave background pipelines. The library interoperates with tools for spectral estimation, map reprojection, and component separation used by major observatories and data centers.
healpy is distributed as a Python package installable via package managers and built from source against compiled libraries. Building healpy typically requires a C compiler and Fortran toolchain compatible with scientific stacks maintained by research institutions. It links with numerical and scientific packages that are de facto standards in astrophysics data analysis and is packaged for distribution channels commonly used by research groups and observatories.
Typical workflows using healpy include creating simulated skies, computing angular power spectra, and producing publication-quality plots of all-sky maps. Users integrate healpy into analysis pipelines that ingest timestreams from telescopes, produce calibrated maps, and derive cosmological parameters. Examples in the community demonstrate simulations with instrumental beams, noise realizations, and mask apodization employed in multi-instrument joint analyses.
The healpy API exposes high-level functions for map I/O, spherical harmonic transforms, and pixel manipulation, as well as lower-level routines for advanced numerical control. Modules are organized to support typical tasks in sky map processing, harmonic-domain filtering, and statistical summarization. The interface is designed to be called from Python scripts and interactive sessions used in research groups and academic courses.
healpy is optimized to leverage compiled routines for compute-intensive operations and can be used on workstations as well as high-performance computing clusters. Performance scales with map resolution and harmonic bandlimit parameters, and users often combine parallelization strategies and memory management techniques from large survey pipelines. Benchmarks in community deployments evaluate runtime for transforms and map synthesis across a range of pixelizations and hardware.
Development of healpy is driven by contributors from research groups, software maintainers, and collaborators associated with observational projects and academic institutions. The community maintains examples, issue trackers, and integration tests that reflect needs from ongoing survey operations and peer-reviewed analyses. Documentation, tutorials, and community support are provided in forums frequented by data analysts, instrument teams, and graduate-level researchers.
Python (programming language) C (programming language) Fortran Cosmic microwave background Astronomy Astrophysics Observational cosmology Spherical harmonics Angular power spectrum High Performance Computing Software maintenance Open-source software Git GitHub NumPy SciPy Matplotlib Astropy HEALPix Planck (spacecraft) Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe WMAP European Space Agency NASA Max Planck Society National Aeronautics and Space Administration European Southern Observatory National Science Foundation Argonne National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation CERN Harvard University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Princeton University University of Cambridge University of Oxford California Institute of Technology Stanford University University of Chicago Columbia University Yale University University of California, Berkeley University of Toronto McGill University University of Amsterdam Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics Leiden Observatory Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris Space Telescope Science Institute Jet Propulsion Laboratory Kellogg Radiation Laboratory Perimeter Institute Royal Astronomical Society American Astronomical Society European Research Council Simons Foundation Kavli Foundation Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Royal Society Science and Technology Facilities Council Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Academia Sinica Peking University Tsinghua University University of Tokyo Severo Ochoa Centre for Excellence Indian Institute of Science Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy National Radio Astronomy Observatory Square Kilometre Array Atacama Large Millimeter Array South African Astronomical Observatory European Southern Observatory Adaptive Optics Facility Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Vera C. Rubin Observatory Hubble Space Telescope James Webb Space Telescope Chandra X-ray Observatory Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope IceCube Neutrino Observatory LIGO Event Horizon Telescope Sloan Digital Sky Survey Two Micron All Sky Survey COBE IRAS WISE Planck Collaboration BICEP/Keck ACT (Atacama Cosmology Telescope) SPT (South Pole Telescope) Simons Observatory Euclid (spacecraft) Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope DES (Dark Energy Survey) HERA LOFAR GMRT MeerKAT FAST (telescope) CHIME DIRBE Murchison Widefield Array HESS VERITAS MAGIC Pierre Auger Observatory Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Euclid Consortium Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Galaxy And Mass Assembly GALEX HIPASS ALMA JCMT GBT Arecibo Observatory Palomar Observatory Kitt Peak National Observatory Mount Wilson Observatory Mauna Kea Observatories Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Roque de los Muchachos Observatory Siding Spring Observatory Anglo-Australian Telescope W. M. Keck Observatory Subaru Telescope Gemini Observatory Lick Observatory Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy European Pulsar Timing Array International Astronomical Union Royal Society Publishing Nature (journal) Science (journal) The Astrophysical Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Astronomy & Astrophysics Physical Review D Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Computer science Data analysis Signal processing Numerical methods
Category:Astrophysics software