GalactICS

The GalactICS code (standing for Galaxy Initial ConditionS) has a long history.  This code is designed to build equilibrium models of isolated galaxies.  It began with the work of Kuijken & Dubinski (1995) and was further developed by Widrow & Dubinski (2005) and Widrow et al. (2008).  This code has been used in a variety of different studies, ranging from modeling the Milky Way and Andromeda, to investigating interacting galaxies.

Recently, I’ve worked with Prof. Widrow, Prof Carignan, and Dr. Randriamampandry to rebuild the code from the ground up.  It uses the same base algorithm, but is significantly faster than older versions of the code.  More importantly, we have included gas disks into the code using the method of Wang et al. (2010).  Currently the code builds galaxies with up to five components; a Sérsic bulge, two exponential stellar disks, an exponential gas disk, and a double-power law dark halo.  The code is available at GalactICS, which includes installation instructions, a readme, and some example models.