Skip to content

Overview

Thor is a GPU-accelerated framework for synthetic observations and post-processing of galaxy formation simulations.

Code Availability

THOR is available via Apptainer containers. The source code will be released openly after publication of the code paper (under review). For early source access or contributions, contact contact@thor-rt.org.

  • High-Fidelity Synthetic Observations

    Mock stellar and gas emission and absorption from cosmological simulations, including resonant emission line radiative transfer.

  • Run Anywhere

    Runs on arbitrary CPUs and GPUs via SYCL. Pre-built containers deploy from laptops to HPC clusters.

  • Broad Compatibility

    Supports native data structures from most galaxy formation codes as well as analytical geometries for idealized studies.

  • Modular by Design

    Built to handle complex rendering, spatial analyses, sampling, and other simulation post-processing tasks — extensible as needed.

Citing Thor

If you use Thor in your research, please cite the following paper:

Byrohl, C. & Nelson, D. (2025). THOR: a GPU-accelerated and MPI-parallel radiative transfer code. arXiv:2507.11603. ADS | arXiv

For a list of papers using Thor and its predecessor codes (voroILTIS, ILTIS), see Papers.

BibTeX 
@ARTICLE{2025arXiv250711603B,
       author = {{Byrohl}, Chris and {Nelson}, Dylan},
        title = "{THOR: a GPU-accelerated and MPI-parallel radiative transfer code}",
      journal = {arXiv e-prints},
     keywords = {Astrophysics of Galaxies, Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics},
         year = 2025,
        month = jul,
          eid = {arXiv:2507.11603},
        pages = {arXiv:2507.11603},
          doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2507.11603},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
       eprint = {2507.11603},
 primaryClass = {astro-ph.GA},
       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXiv250711603B},
      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}