GalPort: Investigation of the bar in action-angle space

arXiv:2607.07262 · astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.IM · Submitted 2026-07-08 · Read on arXiv

Viktor D. Zozulia

astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.IM

Submitted: 2026-07-08

Comments: 18 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Computing

DOI: 10.1016/j.ascom.2026.101163

Code: https://github.com/vdzozulia/galport

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

The gist: GalPort is a Python package for analysing the orbital dynamics of evolving disc galaxy numerical models in action-angle space.

Terminology

Abstract

GalPort is a Python package for analysing the orbital dynamics of evolving disc galaxy numerical models in action-angle space. The package implements novel numerical methods for efficiently estimating actions, angles, and frequencies across different, particle-specific timescales: on the scale of radial or vertical oscillation and on the resonant libration/circulation timescale. The algorithm allows calculation of these dynamic quantities simultaneously at all time steps of the simulated galactic evolution. With this tool, one can trace orbital behaviour within time-varying galactic potentials and classify orbits (resonantly trapped, circulating, or passing through a resonance) based on their angle evolution. GalPort also includes specialised options for analysing the phase-space structure of a galactic bar in the disc plane and along its major axis. We demonstrate the package's performance on a typical N-body model of a barred galaxy, obtaining the global distributions of actions and frequencies and performing a detailed orbital decomposition. The code is publicly available under the MIT license at: https://github.com/vdzozulia/galport

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