OPEN - tools for exoplanet detection

Fitting Keplerian curves to radial velocity data: we've been doing this since 1995 ^[1] in order to find exoplanets orbiting stars other than the Sun. It should be a solved problem by now. Long story short... it's not. Let's see why.

Current methods

There are a lot of different methods to carry out the fitting and a lot of software packages implementing them. Here is a small compilation of these (in no specific order):

RVLIN: set of IDL routines to fit an arbitrary number of Keplerian curves to RV data.
Systemic Console: graphical tool for fitting RV and transits datasets and a library of routines for non-interactive calculations.
EXOFAST: suite of routines written in IDL designed to fit exoplanetary transits and RV variations simultaneously or separately.
BASE: command-line tool for the Bayesian analysis of astrometric and RV measurements.
ExoFit: orbital parameters of extra-solar planets from RV data using MCMC.
PlanetPack: analysis of RV data for exoplanet detection, characterization, and basic dynamical N-body simulations.
Yorbit: yorick-based software for analyzing RV data.

Wow! Plenty to choose from, hun? Don't you just love when scientists keep reinventing the wheel? I do, so I did it as well when I created OPEN.

^{1. Mayor and Queloz, 1995 ↩}

What does it do?

It finds planets! Well... not yet, but soon.

Commands

List of the available commands with small descriptions. Click on any of them for more information (still to come)

READ <file>... [-d] [--skip=<sn>] [--format=<form>] [-v] Read files with RV measurements.
PLOT (obs | fwhm | rhk | s | bis | contrast) Plot various quantities.
PER (obs|bis|fwhm|rhk|resid) [--gls|--bayes|--fast] [-v] [--force] [--hifac=<hf>] [--fap] Calculate periodograms of various quantities
RESTRICT [(err <maxerr>)] [(jd <minjd> <maxjd>)] [(year <yr>)] [(years <yr1> <yr2>)] Restrict data
MOD [k<n>] [d<n>] Set the model to be adjusted

Support or Contact

OPEN is still in pre-alpha stage. There is no guarantee whatsoever that it actually does something. You've been warned. Still curious? Get in touch.