STARDUST

STARDUST, which stands for Spectrum Transport Around RaDiating Universal Source Type, is a cosmological 1D radiative transfer code described in detail by Krause et al. (2018). An earlier (unpublished) version of the code was used by Thomas & Zaroubi (2008), and the underlying physics is based on Fukugita & Kawasaki (1994).

What it does

Given a tabulated spectral energy distribution (SED) for a source embedded in a dark matter halo, STARDUST computes the resulting ionization state (HI/HII, HeI/HeII/HeIII) and gas temperature along a radial grid, at user-defined time intervals. It is useful for studying the Epoch of Reionization, the extragalactic UV background, and the ionizing influence of individual sources (quasars, Population III stars, star-forming galaxies) on their surroundings.

Getting started

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/eor/STARDUST.git STARDUST

Then:

1. Set up your environment — installing GSL, libconfig, and Boost on macOS, on an HPC cluster with environment modules, on an HPC cluster without them, or via an Apptainer/Singularity container.
2. Build: cd src && cp Makefile.template Makefile (edit the paths once), then make.
3. Run an example — three ready-made test cases with sample SEDs and configs live in tests/.

Repository layout

src/        C/C++ source for the STARDUST binary
scripts/    SED generation, plotting, and catalog-building helper scripts (Python)
tests/      Example configs, SEDs, and reference output for three test cases
docs/       Setup and usage documentation (see ROADMAP.md for development status)
plots/      Example output plots referenced in docs/EXAMPLES.md

Configuration

A simulation run needs a SED file and a config file (see docs/EXAMPLES.md for examples). Any parameter not set in the config file falls back to a default defined in src/config_defaults.h; changing those defaults requires recompiling.

Python helper scripts

The scripts under scripts/ (SED generation, plotting, catalog building) need numpy, scipy, and matplotlib. The STARDUST binary itself has no Python dependency. A conda environment file is provided:

conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate stardust

References

• Krause, F. et al. 2018, New Astronomy 64, 9K
• Thomas, R.M. & Zaroubi, S. 2008, MNRAS 384, 1080
• Fukugita, M. & Kawasaki, M. 1994, MNRAS 269, 563

Copyright and licence

STARDUST was created by Rajat Thomas and Fabian Krause.

© 2018 - 2026 The STARDUST Authors

This programme is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This programme is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this programme. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.