The Center for Computational Astrophysics executes research programs on systems ranging in scales from planets to cosmology, creating and using computational tools for data analysis and theory. It also supports, trains, and equips diverse members of the global astrophysics community and convenes events and workshops in New York City.
Featured News

Flatiron Institute astrophysicist Adrian Price-Whelan studies the chaotic motions of stars in the Milky Way. His mission? To search for one of the universe’s best-kept secrets.
Our Mission:
▪ Solve important, hard problems in computational astrophysics. Focus on problems that we at Flatiron are uniquely positioned to solve. ▪ Invent and propagate better data-analysis practices, analytical methods and computational methods for the global astrophysics community, with a focus on rigor. ▪ Develop, maintain and contribute to open-source software packages, open data and their communities. ▪ Create and support a community of astrophysics doers, learners and mentors in New York City and beyond. ▪ Train and launch diverse early-career researchers in astrophysics with unique capabilities in computational methods.
Groups







Collaborative Work

This collaboration, directed by Greg Bryan of Columbia University, aims to understand and determine the evolution and initial conditions of our universe, using observations via a Bayesian forward modeling approach.
- CCA
- | Columbia University
- | Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
- | Harvard University
- | Stockholm University
- | Institute D'Astrophysique de Paris
- | Université de Montreal
- | Princeton University
- | Carnegie Mellon University
- | Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics
Projects
Major research efforts currently supported by
CCA in partnership with other institutions.
News & Announcements
May 23, 2023
Upcoming Events
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30 Tue -
Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Fake Light Workshop
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Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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31 Wed -
Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Fake Light Workshop
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Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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01 Thu -
Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Fake Light Workshop
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Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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02 Fri -
Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Fake Light Workshop
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Workshop 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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31 Mon -
Meeting 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
2023 SDSS-V Collaboration Meeting
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Meeting 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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04 Mon -
Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Black Holes on Broadway: The Next Generation of AGN Models in Galaxy Formation
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Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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05 Tue -
Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Black Holes on Broadway: The Next Generation of AGN Models in Galaxy Formation
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Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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06 Wed -
Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Black Holes on Broadway: The Next Generation of AGN Models in Galaxy Formation
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Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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07 Thu -
Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Black Holes on Broadway: The Next Generation of AGN Models in Galaxy Formation
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Conference 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Event Videos
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Kaitlin Kratter: The Origins of Planets, and the Stars They Orbit
April 21, 2023
CCA Colloquium: Kaitlin Kratter

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Pedro Luis Espino: Revealing Phase Transitions with Gravitational Wave Spectroscopy of Binary Neutron Star Mergers
April 14, 2023
CCA Colloquium: Pedro Espino

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Sarah Burke-Spolaor: Hunting for the Biggest Black Holes in the Universe
March 31, 2023
CCA Colloquium: Sarah Burke Spolaor

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Adam Kowalski: Solar Flare Observations and Models in Sunspot Cycle 25
March 24, 2023
CCA Colloquium: Adam Kowalski

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Research Highlights
Differentiable Cosmological Simulation with Adjoint Method
Rapid advances in deep learning have brought not only myriad powerful neural networks, but also breakthroughs that benefit established scientific…
arxiv:2211.09815pmwd: A Differentiable Cosmological Particle-Mesh N-body Library
The formation of the large-scale structure, the evolution and distribution of galaxies, quasars, and dark matter on cosmological scales, requires…
arxiv:2211.09958Chemodynamical Signatures of Bar Resonances in the Galactic Disk: Current Data and Future Prospects
The Galactic disk exhibits complex chemical and dynamical substructure thought to be induced by the bar, spiral arms, and satellites.…
The Astrophysical JournalDirector
Software

Gala
Galactic Dynamics is the study of the formation, history, and evolution of galaxies using the orbits of objects — numerically-integrated trajectories of stars, dark matter particles, star clusters, or galaxies themselves.

STARRY
starry enables the computation of fast and precise light curves for various applications in astronomy: transits and secondary eclipses of exoplanets, light curves of eclipsing binaries, rotational phase curves of exoplanets, light curves of planet-planet and planet-moon occultations, and more.

George
George is a fast and flexible Python library for Gaussian Process Regression. It capitalizes on the Hierarchical Off-Diagonal Low-Rank formalism to make controlled approximations for fast execution.

celerite
celerite is a library for fast and scalable Gaussian Process (GP) Regression in one dimension with implementations in C++, Python, and Julia.

Astrometry.net
If you have astronomical imaging of the sky with celestial coordinates you do not know—or do not trust—then Astrometry.net is for you. Input an image and we'll give you back astrometric calibration meta-data, plus lists of known objects falling inside the field of view.

DAFT
Daft is a Python package that uses matplotlib to render pixel-perfect probabilistic graphical models for publication in a journal or on the internet.

emcee
emcee is an extensible, pure-Python implementation of Goodman & Weare's Affine Invariant Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) Ensemble sampler. It's designed for Bayesian parameter estimation.