Convolution with transmission curvesΒΆ

Warning

This feature is currently experimental - use at your own risk!

A new experimental feature has been added to Hyperion in recent releases, which is the ability to do on-the-fly convolution with spectral transmission curves. Until this feature was released, the only way to convolve the output from Hyperion with spectral transmission curves was to output a spectral cube with high spectral resolution and do the convolution outside of Hyperion. In most cases this is sufficient, but in cases where the images are high resolution and/or for multiple viewing angles, the memory requirements increase fast.

It is now possible to instead request that the spectral transmission convolution is done inside of Hyperion. In Hyperion, we use the term filter to refer to spectral transmission curves, but these can also be total system spectral transmission curves. Care must be taken when using this feature because it requires a good understanding of how the input spectral transmission curves are defined in order to obtain accurate results.

When setting up images using e.g.:

i = m.add_peeled_images(sed=True, image=False)

filters can be added by using:

f = i.add_filter()

instead of doing:

i.set_wavelength_range(...)

It is important to note that the two are incompatible - a given image group can either use filters, or a fixed wavelength range. However, multiple filters can be added to a single image group. The filter properties are then set using e.g.:

from astropy import units as u

f = i.add_filter()
f.name = 'F2'
f.spectral_coord = [2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4] * u.micron
f.transmission = [0., 50, 100, 60, 0.] * u.percent
f.detector_type = 'energy'
f.alpha = 1.
f.central_spectral_coord = 2.15 * u.micron

The attributes to set are the following:

  • the name should simple be a string that can be used later to refer to the output in that particular filter.
  • the spectral_coord attribute should be set to the x-axis of the spectral transmission curve, and can be in frequency, wavelength, or energy.
  • the transmission attribute should be given as an array or a list of values. The absolute values do not matter, because they are re-normalized before being used in Hyperion, but the values should give the relative transmission as a function of frequency. This should not already be multiplied or divided by the frequency. It should simply give at a given frequency or wavelength, the relative probability that an energy packet will pass through the filter/system.
  • the detector_type attribute should be set to either 'energy' or 'photons'. This is important because for a given input spectral shape for the emission, if a detector simply measures photons, then proportionally more photons will be detected at longer wavelengths relative to shorter wavelengths compared to the ratio of the energy detected at longer wavelengths to shorter wavelengths. When using the measurement made with the detector, it is therefore important to know whether to take into account this bias.
  • the alpha attribute is also related to a subtle issue, which is that when measuring a flux through a given filter, what is measured is a total amount of energy or photons, but in order to convert this to a monochromatic flux F_\nu, assumptions need to be made about the underlying spectral shape. Examples of this are given in the appendix of Robitaille et al. (2007). The parameter alpha is used to indicate that the underlying spectral shape is \nu^\alpha F_\nu \propto {\rm const}.
  • the central_spectral_coord attribute gives the spectral coordinate at which the monochromatic flux should be given.

Once the filters have been set up, Hyperion runs as usual. The output SEDs and images will be defined at the central wavelengths of the filters.

Note that filter convolution cannot be used in conjunction with raytracing, nor with monochromatic radiative transfer.