optixstuff

Flux-level optical system abstractions for the HWO direct imaging simulation suite.

What optixstuff is

optixstuff is the radiometric hardware layer for HWO simulations. It operates on flux — photon rates, throughput fractions, and detector-level noise — providing the shared interfaces that simulation tools and exposure time calculators build on top of.

The same OpticalPath object drives both scalar ETC calculations (jaxEDITH) and full 2D image generation (coronagraphoto), ensuring that the hardware model is consistent across all downstream science products.

What optixstuff is not

optixstuff does not model diffraction, wavefront propagation, or E-field interference. That level of physical optics belongs to tools like dLux and HCIPy, which generate PSFs from first principles.

optixstuff and these wavefront tools are complementary: dLux/HCIPy compute the PSFs, which are delivered as yield input packages (YIPs). optixstuff consumes those PSFs as flux patterns (via yippy) and composes them with the rest of the observatory — throughput chain, detector QE, noise — to produce science-level outputs.

Architecture

Built on JAX and Equinox, optixstuff provides:

• Abstract interfaces — AbstractPrimary, AbstractOpticalElement, AbstractCoronagraph, AbstractDetector
• Concrete implementations — SimplePrimary, ConstantThroughputElement, SimpleDetector
• Container — OpticalPath, a composable hardware configuration passed to all simulators

Every abstract method accepts three fidelity axes — wavelength, position, and time — with defaults so that simple implementations can ignore unused axes while future high-fidelity models (wavelength-dependent coatings, position-dependent vignetting, time-dependent detector degradation) can use them without breaking the interface.

Ecosystem position

                          ┌───────────────────────────┐
                          │  Physical optics           │
                          │  (dLux, HCIPy, PROPER)     │
                          │  E-fields → PSFs           │
                          └──────────┬────────────────┘
                                     │ YIP
                          ┌──────────▼────────────────┐
                          │  yippy                     │
                          │  PSF interpolation         │
                          └──────────┬────────────────┘
                                     │ flux patterns
              ┌──────────────────────▼────────────────────────┐
              │                  optixstuff                    │
              │  Telescope • Coronagraph • Detector • OpticalPath │
              │  Throughput chains • QE • Noise rates          │
              └────────┬──────────────────────┬───────────────┘
                       │                      │
            ┌──────────▼──────────┐ ┌────────▼───────────────┐
            │  jaxEDITH           │ │  coronagraphoto         │
            │  Scalar count rates │ │  2D image simulation    │
            │  Exposure times     │ │  Multi-epoch scenes     │
            └─────────────────────┘ └────────────────────────┘

Installation

pip install optixstuff

Status

This package is in early development (pre-v0.1.0).