Citing PDR Toolbox

If you use the PDR Toolbox for published research or in a presentation, we ask that you please cite the following references:

• Pound & Wolfire (2023)
• Kaufman, Wolfire, & Hollenbach (2006)
• PDR Toolbox @ Astrophysics Source Code Libary
• You can download the BibTeX for these references here.

We gratefully acknowledge support from the NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis Program under award numbers 80NSSC24K0634 and 80NSSC19K0573; from JWST-ERS program ID 1288 provided through grants from the STScI under NASA contract NAS5-03127; and from the SOFIA C+ Legacy Project through a grant from NASA through award #208378 issued by USRA.

History

Back in 2001, when we started the Photodissociation Region Toolbox (PDRT), web programming meant Common Gateway Interface and Perl was King. Single pixel detectors were cutting edge technology and the sub-mm window had just begun to be explored. Airline travel was pleasant and people still smoked cigarettes. We put together PDRT with Perl, HTML, Apache 1.3, FITS files, CVS, shell scripts, thumb tacks, horsehair, and bits of string. The tool filled a need, scratched an itch, developed an international user base. As new telescopes arrived, we added spectral lines and low metallicity models. Web-free scripting interfaces were created by users. Our funding ran out, but we added lines when users requested and kept the service running. Single pixel detectors gave way to pixel arrays and the sub-mm science matured. Since 2020, we have developed and released multiple versions of the Python package, retiring the CGI-based scripts.