A library for javascript and python access to gravitational wave catalogue data.

Initialisation

In the of the page, include the gwcat library.

	<script type="text/javascript" src="js/gwcat.js"></script>

To initialise the database of events

	gwcat = new GWCat(callback, {parameters});


callback [function]: a javascript function to be run once data is loaded.
parameters [Object, optional]: a dictionary containing input parameters:
    debug: [boolean] set to print useful debugging scripts to the console (default=true)
    fileIn: [string] json file to load data from (default=data/events.json)

The resulting object contains the following objects:

data: An array containing all the events, each one of which is a javascript object.
datadict: An object containing the metadata of all the parameter names, default precisions etc.
dataOrder: An array of the event names, showing the order of data.

See https://github.com/chrisnorth/gwcat/blob/master/index.html for demo, and unit tests.

Data format

The data array contains an object for each event. Each event has a set of parameters (M1, M2, Mchirp, UTC, etc.), within which is an object containing the relevant values.

gwcat.data = [
	{
		"Event1 Parameter1": {
			"Event1 Parameter1 Value1": string/number/array
		},
		"Event1 Parameter2": {
			"Event1 Parameter2 Value1": string/array/value
			"Event1 Parameter2 Value2": string/array/value
		},...
	},
	{
		"Event2 Parameter1":{
			"Event2 Parameter1 Value1": string/number/array
		},...
	},...
]

The parameters are those recorded for each event. Note that not all are present for each event.

• name: Event name (e.g. GW150914)
• UTC: UTC time of detection (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss)
• GPS: GPS time of detection
• M1: Primary mass (Msun)
• M2: Secondary mass (Msun)
• Mchirp: Chirp mass (Msun)
• Mtotal: Total mass (Msun)
• Mfinal: Final mass (Msun)
• Mratio: Mass ratio
• chi: Effective inspiral spin
• af: Final spin
• DL: Luminosity distance (MPc)
• z: Redshift
• lpeak: Peak luminosity (1056 erg s-1)
• Erad: Radiated energy (Msun c2)
• FAR: False alarm rate (yr-1)
• deltaOmega: Sky localization area (deg2)
• rho: Signal-to-noise ratio

The values can be any of:

• best: exact of best-fit value of parameter. Can be string (e.g. name, UTC), or number (e.g. masses, spins, GPS).
• lower: a (numerical) lower limit on the parameter.
• upper: a (numerical) upper limit on the parameter.
• lim: a two-element array (of numberse) containing the range of plausible values (where applicable), in order [min, max]. Used where a best-fit value and corresponding error isn't appropriate.
• err: a two-element array (of numberse) containing the errors on the "best" value (where applicable), in order [upper, lower]. Only accompanies a "best" value.

Built-in functions

A number of functions exist to allow access to the data.

• getParamType(event, param): get the type of the value of parameter param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns string of value type, or '' if not found.
• hasError(event, param): returns whether the param [string] has an "err" value for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns boolean (true|false), or false if not found.
• getBest(event, param): gets "best" value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns value, or NaN if not found.
• getBestErr(event, param): gets "best" and "err" value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns array of [best, err].
• getLim(event, param): gets "lim" value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns value, or empty array [] if not found.
• getLower(event, param): gets "lower" value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns value, or NaN if not found.
• getUpper(event, param): gets "upper" value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns value, or NaN if not found.
• getError(event, param): gets "err" value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns value, or empty array [] if not found.
• getNominal(event, param): gets the nominal value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns best, lower or upper value, or average of lim values.
• getMinValue(event, param): gets the minimum value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns "best"-"err[1]", "lower", lower "lim" values, or -Infinity for "upper" values
• getMaxValue(event, param): gets the minimum value for param [string] for event event (name [string] or index [integer]). Returns "best"+"err[0]", "upper", higher "lim" values, or +Infinity for "lower" values
• paramName(param): returns the name of param [string] as stored in datadict, or '' if not found.
• paramUnit(param): returns the unit of param [string] as stored in datadict, or '' if not found.
• getRef(event): returns the reference dict of event [string] as stored in datadict, or {} if not found. Result is a dict containing URL and name.
• getOpenData(event): returns the data link of event [string] as stored in datadict, or {} if not found. Result is a dict containing URL and name.