CMB Toolbox Overview

We provide links to a number of useful tools for CMB and Astronomy in general.

CMB Tools

• CMB Simulations - High-resolution, full-sky microwave temperature simulations including secondary anisotropies.

• CAMB - Code for Anisotropies in the Microwave Background that computes spectra for a set of CMB parameters. LAMBDA provides a web-based interface for this tool. Lewis and Challinor
• CMBEASY - A C++ package, initially based on CMBFAST, now featuring a parameter likelihood package as well. Doran
• CMBFast - A tool that computes spectra for the cosmic background for a given set of CMB parameters. This tool is not being actively developed and is no longer avaiable for download; see CAMB instead. Seljak and Zaldarriaga
• CMBview - A Mac OS X program for viewing HEALPix-format CMB data on an OpenGL-rendered sphere. Portsmouth
• COMBAT - A set of computational tools for CMB analysis. Borrill et al.
• CosmoMC - A Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo engine for exploring cosmological parameter space. Lewis and Bridle
• CosmoNet - Accelerated cosmological parameter estimation using Neural Networks.
• GLESP - Gauss-Legendre sky pixelization package. Doroshkevich, et al.
• GSM - Predicted all-sky maps at any frequency from 10 MHz to 100 GHz. de Oliveira-Costa.
• HEALPix - A spherical sky pixelization scheme. The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data skymap products are supplied in this form. Górski et al.
• IGLOO - A sky pixelization package. Crittenden and Turok
• MADCAP - Microwave Anisotropy Data Computational Analysis Package. Borrill et al.
• PICO - Integrates with CAMB and/or CosmoMC for cosmological parameter estimation using machine learning. Wandelt and Fendt
• RADPACK - Radical Compression Analysis Package. Knox
• RECFAST- Software to calculate the recombination history of the Universe. Seager, Sasselov, and Scott
• SkyViewer - A LAMBDA-developed OpenGL-based program to display HEALPix-based skymaps stored in FITS format files. Phillips
• SpiCE - Spatially Inhomogenous Correlation Estimator. Szapudi et al.
• WMAPViewer - A LAMBDA-developed web-based CMB map viewing tool using a technology similar to that found on maps.google.com. Phillips

Likelihood Software

• SDSS LRG DR7 Likelihood Software - A software package that computes likelihoods for Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG) data from the seventh release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).
• WMAP Likelihood Software - A software library used by the WMAP team to compute Fisher and Master matrices and to compute the likelihoods of various models. This is the same software found on the WMAP products list; more information may be found here.

Other Tools

• WMAP Effective Frequency Calculator - A tool that calculates the effective frequencies of the five WMAP frequency bands.
• CFITSIO - A library of C and Fortran routines for reading and writing data in the FITS format.
• IDL Astro - The IDL Astronomy Users Library.
• Conversion Utilities - A small collection of astronomical conversion utilities.
• Calculators - A list of links to calculators.

Educational Resources

LAMBDA collects educational materials from instructors willing to share their cosmology-related tools with the community at large. If you have something you would like to contribute, please contact us!

This collection of tools can only be extended and improved with your input! Please feel free to send us suggestions and comments.