foraois: Fast, Flexible Extended Press-Schechter Merger Trees with a General First-Crossing Solver

Abstract

We present foraois (Gaelic for Forest; FAW-reesh), an open-source Python framework for generating Monte Carlo dark matter halo merger tree histories. foraois separates the description of the linear density field, the physics of halo collapse, and the algorithmic construction of halo merger histories, allowing different cosmologies, collapse prescriptions, and tree building approaches to be combined within a common framework. The package implements two approaches to the same merger-tree problem of sampling progenitor masses in the excursion-set picture: the semi-empirical algorithm of Parkinson, Cole, & Helly (2008), which applies a fitted correction to the EPS progenitor distribution, and the numerical solution of the Markovian first-crossing equation developed by Zhang & Hui (2006), which for the default real-space top-hat window is an approximation to the correlated-walk problem. Linear matter power spectra for Cold, Warm, and Fuzzy Dark Matter (CDM, WDM, and FDM) can be supplied, while the modular collapse treatment provides an extension point for alternative barrier models. The framework also supports constrained merger histories based on the Brownian-bridge construction of Nadler et al. (2023). We run extensive validation and scaling tests, and also show an illustrative example of coupling foraois to a light-weight semi-analytical model of galaxy formation.