The IMF package: a toolkit implementing mass functions and statistical tools to analyze them

Abstract

Mass functions are used in all areas of astrophysics. The stellar initial mass function (IMF), in particular, plays a central role in modeling stellar populations in galaxies. However, few dedicated tools for working directly with the IMF and its precursor functions are widely available. We present the $\texttt{imf}$ package, a Python library integrated into the wider scientific Python ecosystem that implements common and variant forms of mass functions, especially the IMF and its pre- and protostellar equivalents, as probability distribution functions based on SciPy's statistics architecture. This package enables the performance of operations such as sampling and integration on a wide array of highly customizable mass functions. $\texttt{imf}$ is publicly available on the Python package index $\texttt{pypi}$ under the project name $\texttt{initial_mass_function}$.