Modernisation of Software for Epoch of Reionisation Science

CI: – Dr. N. Barry

The most successful open-source Epoch of Reionisation pipeline is built in ageing, proprietary software. This is a significant limitation; only those in the community that can afford the licensing are contributing, essentially disenfranchising students from smaller universities or countries. Through ADACS, we hope to provide an easy-to-implement non-proprietary pipeline for Epoch of Reionisation graduate students and early career researchers, fully built in python. Not only would this engage a wider user base, but it would also provide vital experience to students in a modern language for both industry and academic career tracks.
This would be the first open-source python code base for reducing Epoch of Reionisation data. In addition, the pipeline to be translated already has an active development community. It has been used in over 16 publications, where 10 were student-led. The transition into python will be non-trivial given the delicate intersection of large quantities of data and high levels of precision required in Epoch of Reionisation science, and thus the expertise of ADACS is essential.
If successful, this is the first in a series of proposals. The current aim for this semester is to understand the breadth of translation required to go from the proprietary software to python for such a large project. A roadmap for the future will be built in order to ensure success in subsequent proposals.
With the current proposal, there is very little in the way of computational requirements, since it is preparatory in nature. However, the Epoch of Reionisation community within Australia is well supported in computing resources, and can provide any necessary assistance to the ADACS team.