Core package to analyze gravitational-wave data, find signals, and study their parameters. This package was used in the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GW150914), and is used in the ongoing analysis of LIGO/Virgo data.
This modifies one of the examples of pycbc_make_skymap to make it clear that random seeds for fake noise must be set explicitly.
Standard information about the request
This is a documentation enhancement.
This change affects one of the examples of pycbc_make_skymap.
Motivation
When simulating noise on multiple detectors via --fake-strain, it is important to set different random seeds in different detectors, otherwise you will get the same noise realization in all detectors, which is usually not how you want to simulate noise!
The example of pycbc_make_skymap that uses simulated noise was not setting the seed explicitly, therefore implicitly using the same seed for all detectors. The resulting skymap looks correct visually, but this can lead to weird results when doing large simulations and checking the results statistically.
Contents
In light of the issue described above, this PR adds explicit seeds to the example.
Links to any issues or associated PRs
N/A
Testing performed
Ran the example before and after this change and plotted the resulting SNR timeseries. Before, I get this:
After, I get this:
Note the pattern of the noise fluctuations away from the central SNR peaks.
Additional notes
Thanks to Nicolas and Clara for noticing this.
[x] The author of this pull request confirms they will adhere to the code of conduct
This modifies one of the examples of
pycbc_make_skymap
to make it clear that random seeds for fake noise must be set explicitly.Standard information about the request
This is a documentation enhancement.
This change affects one of the examples of
pycbc_make_skymap
.Motivation
When simulating noise on multiple detectors via
--fake-strain
, it is important to set different random seeds in different detectors, otherwise you will get the same noise realization in all detectors, which is usually not how you want to simulate noise!The example of
pycbc_make_skymap
that uses simulated noise was not setting the seed explicitly, therefore implicitly using the same seed for all detectors. The resulting skymap looks correct visually, but this can lead to weird results when doing large simulations and checking the results statistically.Contents
In light of the issue described above, this PR adds explicit seeds to the example.
Links to any issues or associated PRs
N/A
Testing performed
Ran the example before and after this change and plotted the resulting SNR timeseries. Before, I get this:
After, I get this:
Note the pattern of the noise fluctuations away from the central SNR peaks.
Additional notes
Thanks to Nicolas and Clara for noticing this.