galpy: A Python Library for Galactic Dynamics
  I describe the design, implementation, and usage of galpy, a Python package
for galactic-dynamics calculations. At its core, galpy consists of a general
framework for representing galactic potentials both in Python and in C (for
accelerated computations); galpy functions, objects, and methods can generally
take arbitrary combinations of these as arguments. Numerical orbit integration
is supported with a variety of Runge-Kutta-type and symplectic integrators. For
planar orbits, integration of the phase-space volume is also possible. galpy
supports the calculation of action-angle coordinates and orbital frequencies
for a given phase-space point for general spherical potentials, using
state-of-the-art numerical approximations for axisymmetric potentials, and
making use of a recent general approximation for any static potential. A number
of different distribution functions (DFs) are also included in the current
release; currently these consist of two-dimensional axisymmetric and
non-axisymmetric disk DFs, a three-dimensional disk DF, and a DF framework for
tidal streams. I provide several examples to illustrate the use of the code. I
present a simple model for the Milky Way's gravitational potential consistent
with the latest observations. I also numerically calculate the Oort functions
for different tracer populations of stars and compare it to a new analytical
approximation. Additionally, I characterize the response of a
kinematically-warm disk to an elliptical m=2 perturbation in detail. Overall,
galpy consists of about 54,000 lines, including 23,000 lines of code in the
module, 11,000 lines of test code, and about 20,000 lines of documentation. The
test suite covers 99.6% of the code.
  galpy is available at http://github.com/jobovy/galpy with extensive
documentation available at http://galpy.readthedocs.org/en/latest .
