Example: make_mesh program

This example program generates a template space and template bank for a binary inspiral search. It uses the functions get_chirp_boundary() to compute the perimeter of the template space, get_chirp_grid() to read in precomputed match coefficients over that space, get_chirp_templates() to place the template bank, and plot_chirp_templates() to plot a PostScript file of the template space.

Note that the get_chirp_grid() function requires the existence of a match coefficient data file named cubic_coef_40meter_m=0.8-3.2.ascii, as generated by the example program make_grid in section .

This program prints log messages to stdout, a list of the perimeter points (in $x,y$ coordinates) to boundary.ascii, a list of the template positions (in mass coordinates) to templates.ascii, and the PostScript image to templates.ps. Here is the standard output produced by this program when everything functions normally:

make_mesh: get_chirp_templates generated 687 templates and exited with code 0.
make_mesh: plot_chirp_templates generated 8 pages of postscript output.

Here are the first few lines of the file templates.ascii, which lists the positions of the templates in mass space. The numbers in the two columns are the $m_1,m_2$ coordinates, in solar masses.

2.963451 2.980348
2.941810 2.960199
2.986875 2.999635
2.918038 2.932353
2.896092 2.911018
2.895651 2.999934
2.869409 2.885002
2.847899 2.862208
...

Figure  shows a portion of the PostScript file templates.ps generated by plot_chirp_templates(). The figure is magnified by an extra factor of 2 for clearer display.

Figure: A portion of the chirp template parameter space generated by the program make_mesh, showing the template patches which cover the space to a match level of 0.98. This figure illustrates how the templates are stacked in columns, with additional overlapping patches along the boundary. Less obvious is the fact that the rectangles are not of uniform size, reflecting the changing behaviour of the match function over the space.

Includes/make_mesh.tex

Author: Teviet Creighton, teviet@tapir.caltech.edu