Recent observations of the galactic centers of M87 and the Milky Way with the Event Horizon Telescope have ushered in a new era of black hole based tests of fundamental physics using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). Being a nascent field, there are several different modeling and analysis approaches in vogue (e.g., geometric and physical models, visibility and closure amplitudes, agnostic and multimessenger priors). We present \texttt{GALLIFRAY}, an open-source Python-based framework for estimation/extraction of parameters using VLBI data. It is developed with modularity, efficiency, and adaptability as the primary objectives. This article outlines the design and usage of \texttt{GALLIFRAY}. As an illustration, we fit a geometric and a physical model to simulated datasets using markov chain monte carlo sampling and find good convergence of the posterior distribution. We conclude with an outline of further enhancements currently in development.
@article{arxiv.2212.06827,
title = {GALLIFRAY -- A geometric modeling and parameter estimation framework for black hole images using bayesian techniques},
author = {Saurabh and Sourabh Nampalliwar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.06827},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
10 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ