AGAMA: Action-based galaxy modelling architecture

TL;DR

Agama is a versatile software library for stellar dynamics that enables potential calculation, orbit analysis, and galaxy modeling, facilitating research on galaxy structure and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive, open-source C++ library with Python bindings for galaxy modeling, orbit analysis, and potential computation, integrating multiple existing tools.

Findings

Supports arbitrary analytic and N-body density profiles

Enables orbit integration and action-angle transformations

Facilitates self-consistent galaxy model construction

Abstract

Agama is a publicly available software library for a broad range of applications in the field of stellar dynamics. It provides methods for computing the gravitational potential of arbitrary analytic density profiles or N-body models; orbit integration and analysis; transformations between position/velocity and action/angle variables; distribution functions expressed in terms of actions and their moments; iterative construction of self-consistent multicomponent galaxy models. Applications include the inference about the structure of Milky Way or other galaxies from observations of stellar kinematics; preparation of equilibrium initial conditions for N-body simulations; analysis of snapshots from simulations. The library is written in C++, provides a Python interface, and can be coupled to other stellar-dynamical software: Amuse, Galpy and Nemo.