The Journal of Open Source Software – known to its friends as JOSS – is is a developer friendly, diamond open access journal for research software packages which has been running since 2016 and is enormously successful, publishing Open Source software across many fields of science. Its UR, joss.theoj.org, is a giveaway that it is a stablemate of astro.theoj.org, aka the Open Journal of Astrophysics.
The driving force behind JOSS, responsible for getting it off the ground at the very beginning, is Arfon Smith whom I’ve known since Nottingham days and it iis fair to say that without his considerable help, OJAp would never have started. Both journals started off as speculative ventures, and OJAp has taken a considerable time to establish itself, but JOSS took off very quickly indeed and has now published over 3,500 papers. There are numerous differences between the two journals but, like OJAp, all publications in JOSS are free to authors and readers.
Arfon has held the role of Editor-in-Chief at JOSS since 2016 but in a recent blog post he explains that he is stepping down from his role as Editor-in-Chief, although he will remain at JOSS. The call for a replacement is here. It’s an opportunity that will appeal to anyone interested in open-source research software and open-access publishing so if that’s you then please consider applying. It will be a substantial investment of time, probably about a day a week. I quote:
Candidates should have the capacity to commit the time this role requires. For those in institutional positions, we ask for a brief letter or statement from your employer or supervisor confirming support for this commitment. Independent researchers, consultants, or others without a traditional institutional affiliation should include a brief statement describing how they plan to allocate the time.
Still, still my eye will gaze long fixed on thee, Till I forget that I am called a man, And at thy side fast-rooted seem to be, And the breeze comes my cheek with thine to fan. Upon this craggy hill our life shall pass, A life of summer days and summer joys, Nodding our honey-bells mid pliant grass In which the bee half hid his time employs; And here we'll drink with thirsty pores the rain, And turn dew-sprinkled to the rising sun, And look when in the flaming west again His orb across the heaven its path has run; Here left in darkness on the rocky steep, My weary eyes shall close like folding flowers in sleep.
P.S. In the picture (from my garden), the colour of the flowers looks a bit strange – probably because it was very sunny. In reality they look more purple.
It’s Saturday once again, so time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further five papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 99 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 547. We didn’t quite make it to a hundred for the year last week, but will do so with the next paper.
I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter (which nobody should be using); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.
The first paper to report this week is “Formation of Close Binaries through Massive Black Hole Perturbations and Chaotic Tides” by Howard Hao-Tse Huang and Wenbin Lu (University of California at Berkeley, USA). This one was published on Wednesday 6th May 2026 in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The paper presents a model of massive black hole-binary systems, showing that repeated tidal interactions can lead to the creation of hyper-velocity stars and other nuclear transients.
The overlay for this paper is here
You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Formation of Close Binaries through Massive Black Hole Perturbations and Chaotic Tides" by Howard Hao-Tse Huang & Wenbin Lu (U. California Berkeley, USA)
The second paper for this week, also Wednesday 6th May, but in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is “Detection of supernova magnitude fluctuations induced by large-scale structure” by Andrew Nguyen (Swinburne Institute of Technology, Australia) and 58 others based all around the world. This study uses supernovae and galaxy velocities to measure the universe’s structure growth rate, confirming the Planck LambdaCDM model prediction. The methodology is validated and shows potential for future research.
The overlay for this one is here:
The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Detection of supernova magnitude fluctuations induced by large-scale structure" by Andrew Nguyen (Swinburne Institute of Technology, Australia) and 58 others based all around the world.
Next one up, the third paper of the week, also published on Wednesday 6th May in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is “Comparing cosmic shear nulling methods for Stage-IV surveys” by Naomi Clare Robertson and Alex Hall (University of Edinburgh, UK). This study compares three strategies for reducing baryon feedback impact on cosmic shear measurements. All methods effectively mitigate bias, with varying degrees of efficiency and information preservation.
The overlay for this one is here:
The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Comparing cosmic shear nulling methods for Stage-IV surveys" by Naomi Clare Robertson & Alex Hall (U. Edinburgh, UK)
The fourth paper this week, published on Thursday May 7th, is “Egent: An Autonomous Agent for Equivalent Width Measurement” by Yuan-Sen Ting & Serat Mahmud Saad (Ohio State University, USA), Fan Liu (National Astronomical Observatories, Beijing, China), and Yuting Shen (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA). Egent is an autonomous agent that combines multi-Voigt profile fitting with large language model visual inspection for efficient, automated analysis of raw flux spectra, validated against expert measurements. This one is in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. The associated software can be found here.
The overlay is here:
The officially accepted version can be found on arXiv here and here is the Mastodon announcement:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Egent: An Autonomous Agent for Equivalent Width Measurement" by Yuan-Sen Ting & Serat Mahmud Saad (Ohio State U., USA), Fan Liu (National Astronomical Observatories, China) and Yuting Shen (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
The fifth and final article of this week was published on Friday 8th May in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The title is “DiffstarPop: A generative physical model of galaxy star formation history” and it is by Alex Alarcon (Institute of Space Sciences, Barcelona, Spain), Andrew P. Hearin , Matthew R. Becker & Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann (Argonne National Laborarory, USA), and Andrew Benson & Sachi Weerasooriya (Carnegie Observatories, USA). DiffstarPop is a model that accurately and rapidly reproduces statistical distributions of galaxy star formation histories (SFH), using parameters related to galaxy formation physics.
The overlay is here:
You can find the authorized version of this paper on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "DiffstarPop: A generative physical model of galaxy star formation history" by Alex Alarcon (Institute of Space Sciences, Barcelona, Spain), Andrew P. Hearin , Matthew R. Becker & Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann (Argonne National Laborarory, USA), and Andrew Benson & Sachi Weerasooriya (Carnegie Observatories, USA)
At last we’ve made it to the end of term. This morning I delivered my last particle physics lecture. Given that it is the last day of the semester I was half-expecting no students would turn up, but in the end I had about 60% attendance. At the end of my lecture there was even a smattering of applause, which I interpreted as meaning that the students were happy that I’d finished.
I thought I would end this module with some topics that I didn’t have time to cover in any detail, but thought the students should know at least something about. These loose ends included:
Renormalization
Grand Unified Theories (GUTS)
Supersymmetry (SUSY)
Particle candidates for Dark Matter
Baryogenesis
I only had time for a superficial treatment of these topics, but felt the class should at least hear the words. There are some very good unanswered research questions under those headings, which I think is an appropriate way to end a final-year module, given that at least some of the class are intending to carry on to further study in physics.
This afternoon we had a colloquium by our PhD student John Ibrahim on the subject of the “Quark‑Gluon Vertex and Confinement of Quarks”. It was a nice talk but it struck me how big the gap was between what I’d been teaching at undergraduate level and the standard that a PhD student has to reach.
Today was also the deadline for Computational Physics projects. I’ll be grading them next week. Even then the term won’t quite be over – there is the small matter of exam marking to be done – but at least I’ve got no more formal teaching to do until September.
Last night on the way home I decided to buy a nice bottle of white wine and put it in the fridge so I could drink it in celebration of the end of term when I get home, with a nice fish supper.
Today is the penultimate day of teaching in the Spring Semester at Maynooth University and I’m here in the Computer Lab for the last time. This afternoon’s session is just a drop-in consultation session for Computational Physics students doing their projects and although it has been busier than previous weeks it has not exactly been a hive of activity. The deadline for project submissions is tomorrow afternoon, so I was expecting a bit of a rush at this session, which is the last of its type, and also at my office hour this morning. I did have one student attend this morning, and a couple of others this afternoon, but other than for them it has been quiet.
On the other hand, over a day before the deadline, three students have already submitted their project reports and code. I’m impressed with that, but also a little surprised. I’ve come to expect just-in-time delivery for such things.
Yesterday I did my last particle physics tutorial of the year and followed that immediately afterwards I attended a long session of final-year project talks, from 3pm to just after 6pm. It is obvious that some students find these presentations a bit of an ordeal but it is important to learn how to present your work so such things are part of the rite of passage. It is good for staff to get an overview of the all projects being done in the Department too.
In previous years the final project presentations for students in the Departments of Theoretical Physics and Experimental Physics were done separately, the former having a somewhat smaller audience than the latter. The two previous Departments having merged into a single Department of Physics, this time round we had all the talks together (though spread over two days, yesterday and the Wednesday before). I think the combined sessions worked quite well and we will probably do it this way next year.
After the session of talks there was a small drinks party in the foyer of the Science Building. That was a nice occasion, and it struck me that it would have been the last time this group of students would all meet together until their graduation. Tomorrow I do my last particle physics lecture and it will be the last time I see quite a few of the students in that class until graduation too. They’ve been a nice group to work with, very engaged and easy to interact with. It is a great pleasure to be teaching students who are eager to learn . That’s the aspect of academic life I’ll miss the most when I retire.
This lunchtime I saw Maynooth University Library Cat in a more pastoral setting than usual. Having just had his lunch, it being sunny, and the area around the Library being somewhat busy, I reckon he had it in mind to have a quiet snooze in the shade of the trees.
A few weeks ago the Euclid Consortium released a printable 3D model of the Euclid Spacecraft. Being a mere theoretician, I don’t know how to operate a 3D printer so I had to ask our technicians if they would make a version for use at open days, etc. The larger version is indeed quite large and everyone has been busy with labs etc, so took a while to print, but thanks to Pat Seery (who did the printing) and Ian McAuley (who assembled and painted the result), here is our model:
The scale for the model is 1:16, so its actual dimensions are 29.5 × 19.5 × 19 cm for the model, and 33 × 20 × 20 cm including the stand. The real thing is over 4.5m tall. There is a little model of an astronaut that comes with the kit (not pictured above) to give an idea of the real size. It’s going to get a protective coat of varnish on it before we use it in public, but it will be a nice addition to our open-day stand and will otherwise be on show in a display case in the Physics Department.
Anyway, if you have access to a 3D printer and would like to make your own version, you can download full instructions here.
So here I am, back home in Maynooth after a long weekend away in Not Maynooth. The weather forecast for Maynooth was typically dreadful for a Bank Holiday weekend but I have to say I can’t sign see much sign of the heavy rain that was predicted.
On the way back I checked the cricket scores and discovered that Glamorgan won their County Championship game against Hampshire by an innings and 69 runs. That’s worth marking on this blog because it is their first win in Division One since 2005. Historic. Their first three games this season ended in a defeat and two draws, so it was 4th time lucky. Well played to them!
Anyway the last four days of teaching term beckon, including a 9am lecture tomorrow morning, so I had better leave it at that and try to get into a work frame of mind.
I saw this on LinkedIn the other day, and thought I should share it here:
If you work in a University, what’s its score? I was thinking we could make a League Table, but so many institutions would get 10/10 that would be pointless.
Here we are, on schedule, with another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further seven papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 94 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 542. I checked the corresponding update for last year (on 3rd May 2025), and we’ve had an increase from 54 to 94 in papers published (about 74%) between the first four months of 2025 and the first four months of 2026.
I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter (which nobody should be using); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.
The first paper to report this week is “DESI-DR1 3 × 2-pt analysis: consistent cosmology across weak lensing surveys” by Anna Porredon (CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain) and 72 others (DESI Colllaboration). This paper was published on Tuesday 28th April in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. This paper presents a joint cosmological analysis of galaxy clustering and gravitational lensing observations, providing consistent constraints on cosmological parameters. The analysis also introduces a new blinding procedure to prevent confirmation bias. See this post for news of an important DESI milestone.
The overlay for this paper is here
You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "DESI-DR1 3 × 2-pt analysis: consistent cosmology across weak lensing surveys" by Anna Porredon (CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain) and 72 others (DESI Colllaboration)
The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 28th April but in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena is “Masers and Broad-Line Mapping Favor Magnetically-Dominated AGN Accretion Disks” by Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech, USA), Dalya Baron (Stanford U., USA) and Joanna M. Piotrowska (Caltech). This one presents a new constraint on supermassive black hole accretion disks physics, suggesting that outer regions are likely in a ‘hyper-magnetized’ state, as thermal or radiation pressure models appear inconsistent.
The overlay for this one is here:
The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Masers and Broad-Line Mapping Favor Magnetically-Dominated AGN Accretion Disks" by Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech, USA), Dalya Baron (Stanford U., USA) and Joanna M. Piotrowska (Caltech)
Next one up, the third paper of the week, is “Galaxy mergers and disk angular momentum evolution: stellar halos as a critical test” by Eric F. Bell (U. Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA), Richard D’Souza (Vatican Observatory), Monica Valluri & Katya Gozman (U. Michigan). This was published on Wednesday 29th April in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The paper argues that satellite accretion impacts the angular momentum evolution of galaxies, often causing significant reorientation. This process is detectable in Milky Way-mass galaxies so the idea is testable observationally.
The overlay for this one is here:
The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Galaxy mergers and disk angular momentum evolution: stellar halos as a critical test" by Eric F. Bell (U. Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA), Richard D'Souza (Vatican Observatory), Monica Valluri & Katya Gozman (U. Michigan)
The fourth paper this week, published on Thursday April 30th, is “Time-Dilation Methods for Extreme Multiscale Timestepping Problems” by Philip F. Hopkins and Elias R. Most (Caltech, USA). This paper is in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics: it presents a new method for astrophysical simulations that modulates time evolution with a variable dilation/stretch factor, improving efficiency and accuracy in modeling processes across different scales.
The overlay is here:
The finally accepted version of this paper can be found here and the Mastodon announcement follows:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Time-Dilation Methods for Extreme Multiscale Timestepping Problems" by Philip F. Hopkins and Elias R. Most (Caltech, USA)
The fifth article of this week was also published on Thursday 30th April, but in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The title is “Cosmic Rays on Galaxy Scales: Progress and Pitfalls for CR-MHD Dynamical Models” and the author is Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech, USA) who has three papers featured this week. The paper presents an overview of cosmic ray (CR) modeling, highlighting its influence on galactic physics and star formation. It addresses previous modeling errors and presents new methods for full-spectrum dynamics.
The overlay is here:
You can find the authorized version of this paper on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Cosmic Rays on Galaxy Scales: Progress and Pitfalls for CR-MHD Dynamical Models" by Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech, USA)
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Baryonification III: An accurate analytical model for the dispersion measure probability density function of fast radio bursts" by MohammadReza Torkamani (Universität Bonn, Germany) and 8 others based in Germany, Switzerland, UK and Sweden
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "The stellar and dark matter distributions in early-type galaxies measured by stacked weak gravitational lensing" by Momoka Fujikawa & Masamune Oguri (Chiba University, Japan)
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In the Dark 