Science Tools Working Group
We met last week (attendees: D Band, T Stephens, R Dubois, J Chiang, D Davis, A Cillis, C Patterson, J Ballet, W Focke, J Conrad, T Burnett, D Sanchez, A Tramacere, B Giebels, E Winter, S Digel). We will meet next week at the usual time.
The current version of the Science Tools remains v9r4p2.
Data products: No news.
Databases and related utilities
No news
Likelihood analysis
No news
GRB tools
No news
Pulsar tools
No news
Observation simulation
No direct news. David Sanchez has almost gotten gtorbsim (nee gttakosim) to run using example files provided some time ago by Giuseppe Romeo. David ran up against a bug regarding parameter handling; James suggested the following workaround for the file input approach to running the tool (while he fixes the bug): "the tool should work for you if you run it once with the command: gttakosim Timeline=. EphemName=. saafile=. "
User interface and infrastructure (& utilities)
At the Science Tools meeting last week, Jim described his proposal for Event Class Handling in the Science Tools in general and in FT1 files in particular. In the proposal he introduced the gtirfs tool.
Source Catalog
Met last week. The discussion was about source identification strategies, toward settling on a standard approach for the Catalog sources.
Science Tools Working Group
Our last meeting was February 13. We will meet tomorrow at the usual time.
The current version of the Science Tools remains v9r4p2. This is the version that the Glast Users Group is using for the Beta Test. The Beta test is at least a month-long opportunity for GUG members to download the tools from the GSSC and analyze the LEO 55-day data set. Part of the test is evaluating the user support at the GSSC. We'll find out tomorrow how things are going.
Data products: No news.
Databases and related utilities
No news
Likelihood analysis
No news.
GRB tools
No news.
Pulsar tools
Masa and James are continuing to work on implementing handling of ephemeris handling for alternate sets of timing parameters for binary pulsars. Masa: "It's been quite a while, but I can assure you that we are making a good progress."
Observation simulation
No direct news. To judge from LATEST builds, Richard recently updated the microQuasar source; documentation in the Workbook should be forthcoming.
User interface and infrastructure (& utilities)
Jim is updating how event class definitions will be handled in the Science Tools (and FT1 files). These will use the existing FT1 columns; possibly an additional keyword will need to be added to the headers.
Source Catalog
Met last week. Jean presented more details about the comparison of source detection algorithms that was shown at the collaboration meeting. Toby presented an investigation of the high-TS spurious sources that pointfind, well, finds. They are related to details of the iteration of source detection in the vicinity of bright sources. Dave T. talked about the re-arrangement of responsibilities between the Unidentified and Catalog groups that Peter announced.
Science Tools Working Group
Our last meeting was February 13. We will get back in the saddle next week.
The current version of the Science Tools remains v9r4p2. This is the version that the Glast Users Group will use for the Beta Test; the GSSC was due to release builds yesterday.
Jim and Toby will led a splinter session last week at the collaboration meeting on 'Extending Science Tools'. This spurred some interesting (to some) discussion about what is a Science Tool.
The ground system software freeze started on March 17. The mission-level Freeze Plan is not accessible to most people. Neither is the presentation that Rob gave to the GLAST Project Office last week regarding the ISOC software (including by reference Science Tools). You can see the SAS-SO CCB page, which has what we are currently working to. My understanding is that for Science Tools this directly affects only the tools used by ASP and that development and releases of Science Tools can continue. The question of when and how to control the analysis tools, like the Standard Analysis Environment tools that the GSSC will support is, to my knowledge, still open. (For ASP-related tools 'freeze' means that changes in the versions of any of the code to be run in the pipeline must be approved by a SAS-SO CCB, a LAT CCB, and the mission level Change Authorization Board.)
Data products: Andrea added the orientation quaternion to the FT2 files. Jim modified makeFT2[a] and gtobssim to fill these values in the files they produce. This is not currently used by any of the science tools but has been discussed as potentially useful for users of this data product. In the next release of Science Tools,
Databases and related utilities
No news
Likelihood analysis
No news. See note about ModelEditor below.
GRB tools
No news.
Pulsar tools
Masa and James are continuing to work on implementing handling of ephemeris handling for alternate sets of timing parameters for binary pulsars.
Observation simulation
From Jim: "option added to run gtobssim "without" IRFs:
gtobssim irfs=none
This will allow all incident within a 1 m^2 encircling sphere to be accepted, i.e., a flat effective area as a function of energy. The incident directions and energies are preserved. i.e., PSF and energy dispersion are not applied (observationSim v8)"
Also, my understanding is that Eric W. has completed an updated version of ModelEditor that uses ROOT GUIs and can translate between source simulation and analysis (Likelihood) model specifications. This is not in our repository yet.
User interface and infrastructure (& utilities)
From Jim: "gtselect:
- allow cut on PULSE_PHASE (phasemin, phasemax) (dataSubselector v5r7)
- disabled/removed cuts that are not supported for use with downstream
tools (dataSubselector v6 pending):- longitude and latitude ranges,
- inclination (theta) and azimuth (phi) in instrument coordinates
- redesign cuts on event class and conversion type for new implementation
of event class designations in FT1 and IRFs (dataSubselector v6 pending)"
Regarding the last bullet - stay tuned for more details.
Source Catalog
Will meet tomorrow. For the most recent news, see the presentations in the Catalog + Diffuse plenary session at last week's collaboration meeting.