GRID-dendro documentation

GRID-dendro: Gravitational Identification with Dendrogram

Acknowledgments and Historical Remarks

Gong and Ostriker [2011] developed and introduced a core finding method called GRID (GRavitatianal IDentification), which utilize isocontours of gravitational potential to provide physically motivated definition of bound cores. Mao et al. [2020] extended this algorithm to identify hierarchical structures of the interstellar medium using dendrogram, as well as significantly improve the efficiency of the algorithm. Alwin Mao, who is the first author of Mao et al. [2020], wrote a python pacakge FISO (fast isocontours) to implement this algorithm in the course of his PhD program. The code has an optimal performance thanks to Alwin’s huge effort to make it fast. Because FISO is so good, I wanted to make it more user-friendly in terms of code design and documentation. Alwin kindly agreed that I can refactor the code and maintain it in a separate repository.

References

GongOstriker11

Hao Gong and Eve C. Ostriker. Dense Core Formation in Supersonic Turbulent Converging Flows. ApJ, 729(2):120, March 2011. arXiv:1101.2650, doi:10.1088/0004-637X/729/2/120.

MaoOstrikerKim20(1,2)

S. Alwin Mao, Eve C. Ostriker, and Chang-Goo Kim. Cloud Properties and Correlations with Star Formation in Self-consistent Simulations of the Multiphase ISM. ApJ, 898(1):52, July 2020. arXiv:1911.05078, doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab989c.