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Jim diagnosed an odd problem with the 'obssim3' simulations of the Big Run sky model as result from the microQuasar source reseting the random number seed. The symptom was that changing the seed given to gtobssim had no effect on the sequence of events that was output. Richard has fixed microQuasar to no longer do this, but the change is not yet in a release of the Science Tools.
For long gtobssim runs (of order 1 year) with a "complete" sky model (e.g., obssim3), we still encounter duplicate event times, probably owing to the intrinsic single precision of the random number generators we are using. See the discussion from obssim 2. As per Toby's suggestion, we have implemented a 26 micro second deadtime: photons with arrival times within this window relative to the previous photon will be discarded. This should result in a loss of a few hundred photons over the course of a year. observationSim v8r1, for now still only in ST LATEST.
Max's recent additions of environment variables to control the writing of log files by PulsarSpectrum is in v9r5p4 of the Science Tools; I don't know any more details at this point. Presumably Max also is working on updating the documentation in the User Workbook.
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