Multiresolution HEALPix Maps for Multiwavelength and Multimessenger Astronomy

Authors

I. Martinez-Castellanos, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Leo P. Singer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
E. Burns, Louisiana State University
D. Tak, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)
Alyson Joens, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Judith L. Racusin, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Jeremy S. Perkins, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1-2022

Abstract

HEALPix - the Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelization - has become a standard in high-energy and gravitational wave astronomy. Originally developed to improve the efficiency of all-sky Fourier analyses, it is now also utilized to share sky localization information. When used for this purpose the need for a homogeneous all-sky grid represents a limitation that hinders a broader community adoption. This work presents mhealpy, a Python library able to create, handle and analyze multiresolution maps, a solution to this problem. It supports efficient pixel querying, arithmetic operations between maps, adaptive mesh refinement, plotting, and serialization into FITS - Flexible Image Transport System - files. This HEALPix extension makes it suitable to represent highly resolved region, resulting in a convenient common format to share spatial information for joint multiwavelength and multimessenger analyses.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Astronomical Journal

Recommended Citation

Martinez-Castellanos, I., Singer, L., Burns, E., Tak, D., Joens, A., Racusin, J., & Perkins, J. (2022). Multiresolution HEALPix Maps for Multiwavelength and Multimessenger Astronomy. Astronomical Journal, 163 (6) https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ac6260