A couple of useful PHP functions

I've recently added to my home page a count of the number of papers which include the string "xspec". This accesses the new ADSlabs full text search. The html instruction is



where the getXSPECpapers.php file contains

1 - 20 of (.+?)%';
preg_match($regex,$data,$match);
echo $match[1];
?>

This can be modified for any other string by changing the q=xspec section of the URL.

I've also added to my CV page so that it updates the number of citations to each of my papers. The HTML to do this is eg:



where the bibcode argument is the standard ADS bibcode. The getCitations.php file contains

(.+?) abstracts.%';
preg_match($regex,$data,$match);
echo $match[1];
?>

New HEAsoft release: eqpair and related models

The new XSPEC (v12.7.1) has updated eqpair, eqtherm, compth, compps and ntee models. These now all use the same Compton reflection code as reflect and ireflct. This may change results slightly for ionized reflectors because the new code uses the input spectrum to calculate ionization fractions while the old code assumed a power-law.

Note however that these models are still not using a realistic physical model for the ionized reflector.

Release of HEAsoft 6.12/Xspec 12.7.1/PyXspec 1.0

The latest release of HEAsoft (6.12) is available from the usual place. This includes a new release of XSPEC, with the changes being primarily new and modified models, and our first full release of PyXspec (v1.0).

New HEAsoft release: PyXspec non-backwards compatibility

The next HEAsoft release should occur before the end of the week. This is the first of a few notes on some of the more important changes.

This is the release of v1.0 of PyXspec. Our thanks to everyone who has provided feedback on the pre-v1 releases, the comments have been most helpful. Based on this feedback and some further thought by ourselves, we have made a couple of changes which are not backwards compatible. We hope this will not be too inconvenient and believe that the new syntax is clearer. These changes are:

(1) When using multiple data groups, the Model objects assigned to the higher-numbered groups now all have their parameters indexed from 1 to nPar. For example, with a 3 parameter model applied to 2 data groups, you would now access the first parameter in the 2nd model object with "mod2(1)" rather than "mod2(4)".

(2) The Model.setPars() function (introduced with patch 12.7.0f) used the p# keyword argument syntax to set non-consecutive parameters. This has been replaced by the use of Python dictionaries. For example, m.setPars(p2=.3, p4=1.1) should now be m.setPars({2:.3, 4:1.1}).

rfxconv model

Chris Done's convolution model which combines the reflionx table model with the Magdziarz & Zdziarski angle-dependent Compton reflection code is now available from the extra models webpage. This model is described in Kolehmainen, Done & Diaz Trigo (2011).