GalCEM I -- An Open-Source Detailed Isotopic Chemical Evolution Code

TL;DR

GalCEM is an open-source, modular galactic chemical evolution code that tracks isotope abundances over time, incorporating various stellar sources and optimized computational methods, to model galaxy chemical evolution accurately.

Contribution

This paper introduces GalCEM, a detailed and flexible chemical evolution model that automatically adapts to input yields and improves computational efficiency with new interpolation techniques.

Findings

Accurately models isotopic evolution from carbon to zinc in galaxies.

Consistent results with Galactic abundances at low metallicity.

Provides tools for isotope mass rate tracking in spiral galaxies.

Abstract

This is the first of a series of papers that will introduce a user-friendly, detailed, and modular GALactic Chemical Evolution Model, GalCEM, that tracks isotope masses as a function of time in a given galaxy. The list of tracked isotopes automatically adapts to the complete set provided by the input yields. The present iteration of GalCEM tracks 86 elements broken down in 451 isotopes. The prescription includes massive stars, low-to-intermediate mass stars, and Type Ia supernovae as enrichment channels. We have developed a preprocessing tool that extracts multi-dimensional interpolation curves from the input yield tables. These interpolation curves improve the computation speeds of the full convolution integrals, which are computed for each isotope and for each enrichment channel. We map the integrand quantities onto consistent array grids in order to perform the numerical integration at each time step. The differential equation is solved with a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. We constrain our analysis to the evolution of all the light and intermediate elements from carbon to zinc, and lithium. Our results are consistent up to the extremely metal poor regime with Galactic abundances. We provide tools to track the mass rate change of individual isotopes on a typical spiral galaxy with a final baryonic mass of $5\times 10^{10} M_{\odot}$. Future iterations of the work will extend to the full periodic table by including the enrichment from neutron-capture channels as well as spatially-dependent treatments of galaxy properties. GalCEM is publicly available at https://github.com/egjergo/GalCEM/