P61

Presentation Title:

Sunkit-spex: A High-energy Spectral Analysis Tool in Python

Author(s):

Kris Cooper (UMN, coop0502@umn.edu), Daniel Ryan (FHNW, ryand5@tcd.ie), Shane Maloney (DIAS, shane.maloney@dias.ie), Laura Hayes(ESA, laura.hayes@esa.int), Stuart Mumford (Aperio Software, stuart@cadair.com), Iain Hannah (UoG, iain.hannah@glasgow.ac.uk), Albert Shih (NASA GSFC, albert.y.shih@nasa.gov), Will Barnes (NRL, will.t.barnes@gmail.com), Natalia Bajnokova (UoG, n.bajnokova.1@research.gla.ac.uk), Lindsay Glesener (UMN, glesener@umn.edu), William Setterberg (UMN, sette095@umn.edu)

Abstract:

Sunkit-spex is a Python tool under development for the high-energy solar community to analyse observed spectroscopic data through forward-fitting and other methods as well as provide easy-to-use, relevant spectral models. High-energy spectroscopic analysis involving forward-fitting has unique complications not faced in other fitting environments. The process includes using physically driven models and a non-diagonal instrument-specific spectral response matrix to convert plasma parameters to an emitted photon spectrum then to an instrument-modelled count spectrum. The resulting modelled count spectrum can then be compared to the observed count spectrum. Therefore, converting from plasma parameters to modelled data is not a trivial process, being dependent on a number of instrument- and observation-specific qualities, and requires a dedicated software package. The community utilises several different spectral fitting tools (e.g., OSPEX and XSPEC); however, none can fit multiple high-energy spectra simultaneously with different fitting metrics while providing necessary models, being optimised for solar data products, and having a simple installation process. Software providing these features is desirable due to the increasing availability of simultaneous solar observations from multiple instruments with the opportunity to investigate flares and other phenomena ranging over several orders of magnitude. Sunkit-spex tackles these elements with a focus on community-led development and is already being used in solar flare investigations. Sunkit-spex also aims to be agnostic to a wide range of data products from past, present, and future instruments as well as different formats where the spectral data may be created from proprietary software, other Python packages, or within the package itself. Sunkit-spex is also able to facilitate the inclusion of custom analytical tools and techniques which can be applied to the spectral data, such as MCMC analysis or other Bayesian methods.

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