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The CHIANTI Atomic Database

The CHIANTI Atomic Database#

Analyzing astrophysical observations requires detailed knowledge of the underlying physics responsible for the formation of the observed spectra. The CHIANTI atomic database provides a comprehensive set of atomic data for relevant elements, ions, and transitions in astrophysical plasmas. CHIANTI includes energy levels, transition wavelengths, as well as collision strength and cross-section data for computing ionization and recombination rates. The papers listed below give an extensive description of each version of the database.

Acquiring the Atomic Data#

The CHIANTI data is distributed by the CHIANTI team as a collection of ASCII text files in a series of subdirectories. Rather than interact with these raw text files directly, fiasco first builds the entire CHIANTI database into a single HDF5 file to allow for easier and faster access to the data.

There are two ways of downloading and setting up the database to be used by fiasco,

  1. Allow fiasco to download the latest release of the database for you (recommended)

  2. Use an existing install of the CHIANTI database. This may be the best option for users who have already installed the CHIANTI package from SSW.

If you choose option 1, no action is required. This is the recommended option, particularly for users new to CHIANTI. The first time that you create an instance of Ion, you will be prompted to download the raw CHIANTI data and then build the HDF5 database from it. Both the raw ASCII data and the HDF5 data will be placed in $HOME/.fiasco/. Alternatively, you can also download and set up the database using check_database.

Option 2 requires you to tell fiasco where to find an existing version of the CHIANTI atomic data. You can do this by setting the path to the CHIANTI data in $HOME/.fiasco/fiascorc. For users who have installed the CHIANTI package with SSW, this file might look like,

[database]
ascii_dbase_root=/path/to/ssw/packages/chianti/dbase

Those who have manually installed the CHIANTI database can just provide the path directly to the (untarred) directory.

Additionally, you may also choose to place the HDF5 database in a location besides $HOME/.fiasco/. For example, a user who wants to use a manually installed version of the CHIANTI database and place the HDF5 file in a custom folder would place the following in their $HOME/.fiasco/fiascorc file,

[database]
ascii_dbase_root=/path/to/custom/untarred/chianti
hdf5_dbase_root=/path/to/chianti/hdf5/file/chianti.h5

To double check that these presets have been set correctly,

>>> import fiasco
>>> fiasco.defaults

should show the paths set in the configuration file.

Testing Against IDL Routines#

The fiasco test suite includes a set of tests that automatically compare against the equivalent routines in the CHIANTI IDL software. The purpose of these tests is to provide a systematic way to assess any deviations from the original IDL software. To run these tests,

$ pytest --idl-executable=/path/to/idl \
         --idl-codebase-root=/path/to/chianti/idl \
         --ascii-dbase-root=/path/to/chianti/dbase \
         --include-all-files \
         fiasco/tests/idl/

where /path/to/idl/ is the path to the directory containing bin/idl (where idl is the IDL executable), /path/to/chianti/idl is the path to the directory containing all of the CHIANTI IDL routines, and /path/to/chianti/dbase is the path to the top directory of the CHIANTI atomic database (what you would usually set as !XUVTOP in CHIANTI IDL). Note that the IDL and database files should be from the same version. This command will run the equivalent IDL commands inside of an isolated IDL environment using only those CHIANTI files. Installing SSW is not required. Note also that the hissw package is required to run the IDL comparison tests.

It is not currently possible to run these tests in a continuous integration environment because of the licensing restrictions imposed by IDL. However, this test suite will be run periodically, particularly as new versions of CHIANTI are supported, to ensure that any differences between fiasco and the IDL software are well understood.

Additional Resources#

Each version of the CHIANTI database is described in detail in a set of publications. These are listed below:

  • Version 1: Dere et al. [DLM+97]

  • Version 2: Landi et al. [LLD+99]

  • Version 3: Dere et al. [DLYDZ01]

  • Version 4: Young et al. [YDZL+03]

  • Version 5: Landi et al. [LDZY+06]

  • Version 6: Dere et al. [DLY+09]

  • Version 7: Landi et al. [LDZY+12]

  • Version 7.1: Landi et al. [LYD+13]

  • Version 8: Del Zanna et al. [DZDY+15]

  • Version 9: Dere et al. [DDZY+19]

  • Version 10: Del Zanna et al. [DZDYL21]

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