IMAGINE, the Interstellar Magnetic Field Inference Engine, is open-source (GNU General Public License v3) software designed for analysing Galactic fields with observables. It is a modular open source framework for doing inference on generic parametric models of the Galaxy. We combine highly optimized tools and technology such as the MultiNest sampler and the information field theory framework NIFTy in order to leverage existing expertise.
The Galactic magnetic field (GMF) has a huge impact on the evolution of the Milky Way. Yet currently there exists no standard model for it, as its structure is not fully understood. In the past many parametric GMF models of varying complexity have been developed that all have been fitted to an individual set of observational data complicating comparability.
Our goal is to systematize parameter inference of Galactic field models. We want to enable a statistical comparison of different models in the future, allow for simple refitting with respect to newly available data sets and thereby increase the research area’s transparency. We aim to make state-of-the-art Bayesian methods easily available and in particular to treat the statistics related to the random components of the GMF correctly.
Please check our WIKI PAGE for more detailed technical infomration.
The very 1st version IMAGINE source code can be found here
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IMAGINE: A comprehensive view of the interstellar medium, Galactic magnetic fields and cosmic rays
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Inferring Galactic magnetic field model parameters using IMAGINE
bug reports and code contributions are warmly welcomed, feel free to contact