SWIFTGalaxy: a Python package to work with particle groups from SWIFT simulations

TL;DR

SWIFTGalaxy is an open-source Python package that enhances analysis of galaxy particles in SWIFT simulations by understanding halo catalogues, enabling coordinate transformations, masking, and efficient iteration over multiple galaxies.

Contribution

It extends SWIFTSimIO with new functionalities for galaxy particle analysis, including coordinate handling, masking, and multi-galaxy iteration, tailored for SWIFT simulation data.

Findings

Supports on-the-fly particle matching with rotations and translations

Provides tools for coordinate system conversions

Enables efficient analysis of multiple galaxies

Abstract

SWIFTGalaxy is an open-source astrophysics module that extends SWIFTSimIO to analyses of particles belonging to individual galaxies simulated with SWIFT. It inherits from and extends the functionality of SWIFTSimIO's SWIFTDataset class. It understands the content of halo catalogues and therefore which particles belong to a galaxy or other group of particles, and its integrated properties. The particles occupy a coordinate frame that is enforced to be consistent, such that particles loaded on-the-fly will match e.g.~rotations and translations of particles already in memory. Intuitive masking of particle datasets is also enabled. Utilities to make working in cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems more convenient are also provided. Finally, tools to iterate efficiently over multiple galaxies are provided.