Lightning is a spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code originally designed to rapidly fit non-parametric star formation history (SFH) models to photometric galaxy data.
Now, Lightning employs a variety of methods, including an adaptive Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo, affine-invariant Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo, and Levenberg-Marquardt gradient decent (MPFIT) algorithms to fit X-ray to far-infrared (FIR) SEDs. The models fit to the SEDs can have contributions from stellar populations, ISM dust emission, and AGN.
To install the Lightning package, you can use git as follows:
cd <install_dir>
git clone https://github.com/rafaeleufrasio/lightning
NOTE: Lightning is written in the Interactive Data Language (IDL) and requires IDL version 8.3 or later. It additionally requires the IDL Astronomy User's Library and Craig Markwardt's MPFIT library. Both will need to installed and added to your IDL path before using Lightning.
Lightning will then need to be built by running:
cd <install_dir>
idl lightning_build
To learn how to run Lightning and for a helpful user guide, please read our Online Documentation.
If you make use of Lightning, please cite the following articles:
@MISC{2017ascl.soft11009E,
author = {{Eufrasio}, Rafael T.},
title = "{Lightning: SED Fitting Package}",
keywords = {Software},
year = 2017,
month = nov,
eid = {ascl:1711.009},
pages = {ascl:1711.009},
archivePrefix = {ascl},
eprint = {1711.009},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ascl.soft11009E},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
@ARTICLE{2017ApJ...851...10E,
author = {{Eufrasio}, R.~T. and {Lehmer}, B.~D. and {Zezas}, A. and {Dwek}, E. and {Arendt}, R.~G. and {Basu-Zych}, A. and {Wiklind}, T. and {Yukita}, M. and {Fragos}, T. and {Hornschemeier}, A.~E. and {Markwardt}, L. and {Ptak}, A. and {Tzanavaris}, P.},
title = "{On the Spatially Resolved Star Formation History in M51. I. Hybrid UV+IR Star Formation Laws and IR Emission from Dust Heated by Old Stars}",
journal = {\apj},
keywords = {galaxies: individual: NGC 5194, NGC 5195, galaxies: interactions, galaxies: spiral, galaxies: star formation, galaxies: stellar content, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics},
year = 2017,
month = dec,
volume = {851},
number = {1},
eid = {10},
pages = {10},
doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/aa9569},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
eprint = {1710.09401},
primaryClass = {astro-ph.GA},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ApJ...851...10E},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
Lightning is available under the terms of the MIT license.