grackle: a chemistry and cooling library for astrophysics

Abstract

We present the grackle chemistry and cooling library for astrophysical simulations and models. grackle provides a treatment of non-equilibrium primordial chemistry and cooling for H, D and He species, including H₂ formation on dust grains; tabulated primordial and metal cooling; multiple ultraviolet background models; and support for radiation transfer and arbitrary heat sources. The library has an easily implementable interface for simulation codes written in c, c++ and fortran as well as a python interface with added convenience functions for semi-analytical models. As an open-source project, grackle provides a community resource for accessing and disseminating astrochemical data and numerical methods. We present the full details of the core functionality, the simulation and python interfaces, testing infrastructure, performance and range of applicability. grackle is a fully open-source project and new contributions are welcome.