The GIST pipeline: A multi-purpose tool for the analysis and visualisation of (integral-field) spectroscopic data^⋆

¹ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
e-mail: adrian.bittner@eso.org
² Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Professor-Huber-Platz 2, 80539 Munich, Germany
³ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Calle Vía Láctea s/n, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁴ Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁵ Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, UK
⁶ Center for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, AL10 9AB Hatfield, UK
⁷ INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Via Moiariello 16, 80131 Napoli, Italy
⁸ Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
⁹ Astrophysics Research Center, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 INN, UK
¹⁰ Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie, Konigstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
¹¹ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14480 Potsdam, Germany
¹² Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (IGN), C/ Alfonso XII 3, 28014 Madrid, Spain
¹³ Departamento de Física Teórica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Cantoblanco, Spain
¹⁴ Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara St., Pasadena, CA 91101, USA

Received: 3 May 2019
Accepted: 7 June 2019

Abstract

We present a convenient, all-in-one framework for the scientific analysis of fully reduced, (integral-field) spectroscopic data. The Galaxy IFU Spectroscopy Tool (GIST) is entirely written in Python 3 and conducts all the steps from the preparation of input data to the scientific analysis and to the production of publication-quality plots. In its basic set-up, it extracts stellar kinematics, performs an emission-line analysis, and derives stellar population properties from full spectral fitting and via the measurement of absorption line-strength indices by exploiting the well-known pPXF and GandALF routines, where the latter has now been implemented in Python. The pipeline is not specific to any instrument or analysis technique and provides easy means of modification and further development, thanks to its modular code architecture. An elaborate, Python-native parallelisation is implemented and tested on various machines. The software further features a dedicated visualisation routine with a sophisticated graphical user interface. This allows an easy, fully interactive plotting of all measurements, spectra, fits, and residuals, as well as star formation histories and the weight distribution of the models. The pipeline has been successfully applied to both low- and high-redshift data from MUSE, PPAK (CALIFA), and SINFONI, and to simulated data for HARMONI and WEAVE and is currently being used by the TIMER, Fornax3D, and PHANGS collaborations. We demonstrate its capabilities by applying it to MUSE TIMER observations of NGC 1433.