Zusammenfassung
I describe DESPOTIC, a code to Derive the Energetics and SPectra of Optically
Thick Interstellar Clouds. DESPOTIC represents such clouds using a one-zone
model, and can calculate line luminosities, line cooling rates, and in
restricted cases line profiles using an escape probability formalism. It also
includes approximate treatments of the other dominant heating and cooling
processes for the cold interstellar medium, including cosmic ray and X-ray
heating, grain photoelectric heating, heating of the dust by infrared and
ultraviolet radiation, thermal cooling of the dust, and collisional energy
exchange between dust and gas. Based on these heating and cooling rates,
DESPOTIC can calculate clouds' equilibrium gas and dust temperatures, and their
time-dependent thermal evolution. The software is intended to allow rapid and
interactive calculation of clouds' characteristic temperatures, identification
of their dominant heating and cooling mechanisms, and prediction of their
observable spectra across a wide range of interstellar environments. DESPOTIC
is implemented as a Python package, and is released under the GNU General
Public License.
Nutzer