Modernisation of Software for Epoch of Reionisation Science

CI: – Dr. N. Barry

The most successful open-source Epoch of Reionisation pipeline is built in aging, proprietary software. This is a significant limitation; only those in the community that can afford the licensing are contributing, essentially disenfranchising students from smaller universities or countries. Through ADACS, we hope to provide an easy-to-implement non-proprietary pipeline for Epoch of Reionisation graduate students and early career researchers, fully built-in python. Not only would this engage a wider user base, but it would also provide vital experience to students in a modern language for both industry and academic career tracks.
This would be the first open-source python code base for reducing Epoch of Reionisation power spectrum data. In addition, the pipeline to be translated already has an active development community. It has been used in over 19 publications, where 13 were student-led. The transition into python will be non-trivial given the delicate intersection of large quantities of data and high levels of precision required in Epoch of Reionisation science, and thus the expertise of ADACS is essential.
This is the third in a series of ongoing proposals to realise this aim. Allocated time in 2021A determined the feasibility and required resources of the project, including the best way to approach systematic porting. The 2021B semester ported the most difficult, core functions in FHD to create drop-in replacements to the analysis. A continuation of this project into 2022A would translate the rest of the first half of FHD. This will create a separate, user-friendly pipeline in python that will be easier to utilise than drop-in replacements, and thus would have an even bigger impact.