A semi-numerical cosmological simulation code for the radio 21-cm signal.
This is the official repository for 21cmFAST: a semi-numerical code that is able to produce 3D cosmological realisations of many physical fields in the early Universe. It is super-fast, combining the excursion set formalism with perturbation theory to efficiently generate density, velocity, halo, ionization, spin temperature, 21-cm, and even ionizing flux fields (see the above lightcones!). It has been tested extensively against numerical simulations, with excellent agreement at the relevant scales.
21cmFAST has been widely used, for example, by the Murchinson Widefield Array (MWA), LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) and Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), to model the large-scale cosmological 21-cm signal. In particular, the speed of 21cmFAST is important to produce simulations that are large enough (several Gpc across) to represent modern low-frequency observations.
As of v3.0.0, 21cmFAST is conveniently wrapped in Python to enable more dynamic code.
- Robust on-disk caching/writing both for efficiency and simplified reading of previously processed data (using HDF5).
- Convenient data objects which simplify access to and processing of the various density and ionization fields.
- De-coupled functions mean that arbitrary functionality can be injected into the process.
- Improved exception handling and debugging
- Comprehensive documentation
- Comprehensive test suite.
- Strict semantic versioning.
We support Linux and MacOS (please let us know if you are successful in installing on Windows!). On these systems, the simplest way to get 21cmFAST is by using `<https://www.anaconda.com/>conda`_:
conda install -c conda-forge 21cmFAST
21cmFAST is also available on PyPI, so that pip install 21cmFAST also works. However, it depends on some external (non-python) libraries that may not be present, and so this method is discouraged unless absolutely necessary. If using pip to install 21cmFAST (especially on MacOS), we thoroughly recommend reading the detailed `<https://21cmfast.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html>installation instructions`_.
Full documentation (with examples, installation instructions and full API reference) found at https://21cmfast.readthedocs.org.
If you find 21cmFAST useful in your research please cite at least one of the following (whichever is most suitable to you):
Andrei Mesinger and Steven Furlanetto, "Efficient Simulations of Early Structure Formation and Reionization", The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 669, Issue 2, pp. 663-675 (2007), https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link_gateway/2007ApJ...669..663M/doi:10.1086/521806
Andrei Mesinger, Steven Furlanetto and Renyue Cen, "21CMFAST: a fast, seminumerical simulation of the high-redshift 21-cm signal", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 411, Issue 2, pp. 955-972 (2011), https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link_gateway/2011MNRAS.411..955M/doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.17731.x