astrogewgaw / epndb

Access the EPN's Database of Pulsar Profiles, from Python.

What is this?

epndb allows access to the EPN's Database of Pulsar Profiles, via Python. Begun as a part of the European Pulsar Network (EPN) in 1996, the aim of this database was to form a large collection of pulsar profiles, and provide them via a simple and convenient web interface. In 2015, Michael Keith recreated a modern version of the database, which is now housed here. This project aims to provide a Pythonic interface to the database, allowing for many of the same features as the original database, while also adding new ones. Some of these features are:

• Search for a pulsar in the database, by name.
• Search for pulsar(s) via wildcards (e.g. "J21*").
• Get info about a pulsar's profiles.
• Get a profile as a numpy array.
• Search for a profile by frequency, or by reference.
• Plot, and interact with, a profile (via plotly).
• Get appropriate reference(s) for each profile.
• Get appropriate licensing info for each profile.
• Search the database by reference(s).
• Save a profile in various formats, such as:
  • HDF5,
  • JSON,
  • ASCII,
  • PSRFITS etc.

This project is still in a nascent stage, so all features haven't matured yet, some might get removed later on, and many others might get added. If there is a feature that would like that hasn't made it to the list above, let me know!

Install

Installation will soon be as simple as:

pip install epndb

as soon as the project makes it to PyPI. For now, you can clone the Github repository, and from the root directory, run:

pip install .

Usage

In [1]: from epndb import DB

In [2]: psr = DB.get("J2144-3933")

In [3]: psr.profiles
Out[3]:
[Profile for PSR J2144-3933 at 𝜈 = 436.0 MHz.,
 Profile for PSR J2144-3933 at 𝜈 = 436.0 MHz.,
 Profile for PSR J2144-3933 at 𝜈 = 658.875 MHz.,
 Profile for PSR J2144-3933 at 𝜈 = 1369.0 MHz.,
 Profile for PSR J2144-3933 at 𝜈 = 1400.0 MHz.,
 Profile for PSR J2144-3933 at 𝜈 = 1520.0 MHz.]

In [4]: prof = psr.profiles[2]

In [5]: prof.plot()

This should show something like this:

but interactive, right in your favourite web browser! (Note: This does not mean that you require the internet to plot the profile. However, you do need it to access the profile!)

Licensing

This project is entirely my own, and is not associated with the database, or the organisations maintaining it (the Jodrell Bank Pulsar Group at the University of Manchester, and the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA)). The code is licensed under the MIT License. The data is copyrighted to the authors of the work that produced the profiles. Most of the data is licensed under one of two license: the EPN Legacy Agreement, or the CC Attribution 4.0 International License. Some of the data may be under other licenses. If in doubt, make sure to contact the original authors of the work!

EPN Legacy Agreement

The data that form this archive have been, or will shortly about to be, published in Scientific journals. The authors have kindly agreed to make their data available publicly. Therefore, if you intend to use any of the data as part of a publication, full credit MUST be given to the original authors. Specific information on the data for each profile can be found in the main archive browser (links are provided to the bibliographic information for each profile's published journal).

Acknowledgement

If you want to acknowledge general use of the EPN's Database of Pulsar Profiles, we recommend the following wording:

Part of this research has made use of the EPN's Database of Pulsar Profiles maintained by the University of Manchester, available at: http://www.epta.eu.org/epndb.

Thanks

epndb owes everything to the EPN's Database of Pulsar Profiles. This database would not have been possible without Duncan Lorimer, the original creator of the database, Michael Keith, the current developer and maintainer of the database, and the many, many generous authors who supplied the database with the profiles themselves.