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nanograv / PINT

PINT is not TEMPO3 -- Software for high-precision pulsar timing
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Check TOA flags for IPTA compliance #1379

Open dlakaplan opened 2 years ago

dlakaplan commented 2 years ago

Method and stand-alone script to check TOA flags for IPTA compliance

@gooddc said she has a prototype.

gooddc commented 2 years ago

The prototype works for EPTA and NANOGrav, although it's possible PPTA will break it, based on a conversation I just had on slack. So we'll get to work on documenting and testing this.

dlakaplan commented 2 years ago

Can you link to the standards docs here?

gooddc commented 2 years ago

Link: https://wiki.ipta4gw.org/doku.php?id=shared_data_specifications

TOA requirements (excerpted from that page) ToA Files Required entries:

<pointer to profile>
<effective centre frequency (MHz)>
<Site ToA (MJD)>
<ToA uncertainty (microsec)>
<3-letter telescope code>
-fe <frontend>
-be <backend>
-B <band descriptor>
-bw <bandwidth (MHz)>
-tobs <obs duration (s)>
-pta <PTA>
-proc <processing version identifier>

Optional entries:

-tmplt <template profile file name>
-gof <reduced chi^2 for template fit to profile>
-nbin <nr of bins in profile>
-nch <nr of pre-dedispersion frequency channels in bandwidth>
-f <frontend_backend>

ToA uncertainties should be given as produced by the template-matching process. Additional uncertainties can be quantified by adding EFAC/EQUAD lines to the ToA file.

dlakaplan commented 2 years ago

Given what you were discussing, I think we'd want a basic version that just tests for compliance, with options to suggest changes only if desired.

aarchiba commented 2 years ago

The prototype works for EPTA and NANOGrav, although it's possible PPTA will break it, based on a conversation I just had on slack. So we'll get to work on documenting and testing this.

Do you mean to say that EPTA and NANOGrav data pass while PPTA data doesn't? Or is there something about PPTA data that makes the routine fail/crash/report a wrong result?