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Welcome to the RM-tools wiki. This wiki will include documentation on how to install and use RM-tools, as well as notes on the underlying implementation and calculations (including error calculations).
This wiki is a work in progress, so if there is information missing that you would like to know, please contact the maintainers and we can prioritize adding it.
RM-tools is a software package that implements rotation measure (RM) synthesis and Stokes QU-fitting for use on astronomical radio polarization analysis. Astronomical observations of the polarization of natural radio emission are used for the study of cosmic magnetism and related topics. More information at the general public level can be found here or here.
Users who are new to RM-synthesis or the analysis of radio polarization data are encouraged to contact Cameron Van Eck (contact details below) who is happy to have discussions about the theory and observation of radio polarization and Faraday rotation.
RM-tools was initially developed by Cormac Purcell, and active development has been taken over by CIRADA. We have added RM-Tools to the Astronomical Source Code Library (ASCL); it can be cited similar to an arXiv paper using the citation code given here.
A paper describing RM-tools is being written, so please check back later for information on how to reference that once it is published.
The current primary maintainer is Cameron Van Eck (cameron.vaneck (at) anu.edu.au). If you find a bug or have a request for a new feature, please submit it through the Github 'Issues' page so that we can document it.
RM-tools is a work in progress, so new features can still be added. If you have an idea for something you would like to see added to RM-tools, please submit a feature request through the Github Issues page.
We would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to RM-tools, though direct code contributions, debugging, or testing: Alec Thomson, Mathew Alger, Boris Gbeasor, Anna Ordog, Jeroen Stil, Shinsuke Ideguchi, Shannon Vanderwoude, Bryan Gaensler, and Ariel Amaral.
Last updated 7 June 2020.