Amoeba is a new, modular, and open source quasar modeling code designed to model intrinsic and extrinsic variability within the context of wide field surveys such as LSST. It treats both emissions and reverberations with corrections from Doppler shifting, general relativity, and ray-tracing around the central black hole. We can simulate any inclination angle, where moderate to edge-on cases can significantly deviate from the flat metric case.
Accretion disk temperature profiles have been modelled as a thin disk profile1, an irradiated disk profile2, or the disk+wind profile3. We provide a flexible temperature profile which can include contributions from lamp post heating and variable accretion flows, which smoothly converges to the thin disk temperature profile. Beyond this temperature profile, Amoeba allows for any input (effective) temperature mapping to be used to create arbitrary surface brightness / response maps. Transfer functions may be constructed from these response maps under the assumed lamppost model.
We cannot upload a magnification map sample due to size limits. This code was written to use microlensing magnification maps which are pre-calculated, where many can be found on the GERLUMPH database4.
The function "CreateMaps" within QMF is designed to generate all accretion disk maps required for making a disk object. This function relies on Sim5, a public geodesic ray-tracing code5, to calculate impact positions of observed photons on the accretion disk. Only geometrically flat disks are supported, as the position of impact is calculated rapidly at the midplane.
If you would like to run the AmoebaExamples.ipynb notebook, you will be required to change file paths and provide the disk file (creatable with QMF.CreateMaps) and magnification map.
Broad Line Region (BLR) models have been given some TLC and are added again! They may be tested using TestingBLR.ipynb. They are created by defining streamlines, similar to the disk-wind model6. Simple projections, line-of-sight velocity slices, and scattering transfer functions may be constructed now.
To make this code even more accessible, sample scripts are included to show exactly the kinds of variability involved with these accretion disks. Any scripts prefaced "Write" will create a .json file (stored in SampleJsons), and values may be adjusted either through the writing script or the .json directly.
Thank you for taking notice of my code! I would be happy to answer any questions. I can be contacted directly at hbest@gradcenter.cuny.edu
**** Installation instructions **** First clone Amoeba onto your local machine using:
git clone https://github.com/Henry-Best-01/Amoeba.git
Make sure all dependencies are up to date, for pip users:
pip install -U numpy
pip install -U matplotlib
pip install -U scipy
pip install -U astropy
pip install -U scikit-image
Or for Conda users:
conda install numpy
conda install matplotlib
conda install scipy
conda install astropy
conda install scikit-image
conda update --all
To use Sim5 for ray tracing and the "CreateMaps" functionality, please follow Sim5 installation instructions here, including the instructions to install the python interface.
Microlensing simulations will require an external magnification map. In the example notebook please provide the directory to these maps.
Some precomputed ray tracings may be found here which contains a zipped folder of .fits files for various inclination angles and black hole spins. Providing the path to one of these ray traces in the notebook will show you how to use these files with Amoeba. Beyond this zip file, a single file is included with Amoeba.