Efficient Emission Line Fitting Software for Optical IFU

CI: – Dr. D. Fisher

We are proposing for ADACS resources to generate a fast, efficient emission line fitting software package that incorporates GPU and parallel processing methods. This software is needed in order to increase the capabilities of Australian astronomers with large IFS images, especially from the ESO/VLT instrument MUSE. MUSE is the most widely used instrument in Australia, and most heavily oversubscribed at VLT overall. A typical MUSE data cube has roughly 10,000 individual spectra, fitting of multiple emission lines further compounds the computational requirements. Similar problems exist with modern datacubes such as Keck/KCWI and ALMA, as well future instrumentation from Hector or ESO-MAVIS will face the same problem. We intend to advertise the software to the ESO community internationally. Such a software will therefore have significant impact in both allowing Australian astronomers to engage in ESO instrumentation, and raising the Australian engagement with ESO in general. Our project is therefore directly addressing the top aim of the Australian mid-term review of the decadal plan. Our team of CI’s include lead investigators of multiple IFU surveys, including the MUSE-based MAGPI survey and Keck based DUVET survey, and will make immediate use of the software in these high profile observing programs.