Software & data

GLoW

Wave-optics lensing of gravitational waves: the amplification factor for a general matter distribution, fast enough to use inside parameter estimation.

Code purpose

Gravitational Lensing of Waves · public

GLoW computes the amplification factor for gravitational waves propagating through a gravitational lens, in the wave-optics regime where diffraction and interference matter. It handles general matter distributions (built from a library of lenses that can be added freely) by combining contour-integration and time-domain methods with careful treatment of the singular Fermat potential. GLoW is fast enough for Bayesian parameter inference and to train models for simulation-based inference.

Language
Python, with the numerical core in C behind a Cython wrapper
Licence
GPL-3.0
Contributors
Héctor Villarrubia-Rojo (lead developer), Stefano Savastano, Lyla Choi, Srashti Goyal, Liang Dai, Giovanni Tambalo, Miguel Zumalacárregui.

The physics GLoW computes is described on the wave optics and microlensing pages.

Get it

Repository
github.com/glow-astro/GLoW
Documentation
glow-astro.github.io/GLoW/
Install
Clone the repository and follow the installation page in the documentation

Citing GLoW

Work that uses GLoW should cite the method paper, which is what the repository asks for.

Papers using GLoW

15 papers have used GLoW, spanning 2024–2026

Work by the group and by others that has run the code. If your paper is missing, or is listed and should not be, tell us and it will be corrected.

2026

2025

2024

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