AM3: An Open-source Tool for Time-dependent Lepto-hadronic Modeling of Astrophysical Sources

Abstract

We present the Astrophysical Multimessenger Modeling ( AM ^3 ) software. AM ^3 is a documented open-source software (source code at https://gitlab.desy.de/am3/am3 ; user guide and documentation at https://am3.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ ) that efficiently solves the coupled integro-differential equations describing the temporal evolution of the spectral densities of particles interacting in astrophysical environments, including photons, electrons, positrons, protons, neutrons, pions, muons, and neutrinos. The software has been extensively used to simulate the multiwavelength and neutrino emission from active galactic nuclei (including blazars), gamma-ray bursts, and tidal disruption events. The simulations include all relevant nonthermal processes, namely synchrotron emission, inverse Compton scattering, photon–photon annihilation, proton–proton and proton–photon pion production, and photo-pair production. The software self-consistently calculates the full cascade of primary and secondary particles, including nonlinear feedback processes and predictions in the time domain. It also allows the user to track separately the particle densities produced by means of each distinct interaction process, including the different hadronic channels. With its efficient hybrid solver combining analytical and numerical techniques, AM ^3 combines efficiency and accuracy at a user-adjustable level. We describe the technical details of the numerical framework and present three examples of applications to different astrophysical environments.

Keywords

• Computational methods
• Tidal disruption
• Radiative processes
• Open source software
• Gamma-ray astronomy
• Neutrino astronomy