Micro-simulations Inside the VO: the BaSTI Case

A generalization of the Theoretical Spectral Access Protocol (TSAP) standard called Simple Self-described Service Protocol (S3P) has been used to search and access stellar model data. In particular, a Web server has been implemented that searches for synthetic isochrones and tracks computed using the FRANEC code and stored inside the BaSTI (a Bag of Stellar Tracks and Isochrones) relational database. The S3P allows an easy creation of a VO service for a collection of micro-simulations: this protocol is able to provide information about which parameters can be queried and which values are available and, as a second step, makes a viable query to the database using the parameters chosen by the user. The collection of tracks and isochrones is returned as a standard VOTable. We implemented this self-describing service for opening the VO door to the micro-simulations. In the future we will also implement it for the BaSTI Web tools (an isochrones maker and track interpolation program, a luminosity function program and a synthetic CMD code) to give them more visibility to the scientific community and to allow easier comparisons between various simulations and/or between observations and theoretical models. This project is developed within the Italian Theoretical Virtual Observatory (ITVO) project as part of the Italian Virtual Observatory initiative (VObs.it) and in collaboration with Spanish Virtual Observatory.