Users guide

Configuration

You can use the iact-estimator-cfg command-line tool

iact-estimator-cfg --output-path /where/to/save/config/file

to get the following example configuration file,

assumed_model:
  # see https://docs.gammapy.org/1.1/user-guide/model-gallery/index.html#spectral-models
  name: gammapy.modeling.models.LogParabolaSpectralModel
  parameters:
    amplitude: 3.39e-11 TeV^-1 cm^-2 s^-1
    reference: 1 TeV
    alpha: 2.51
    beta: 0.21
  from_log10: True # relevant for e.g. LogParabolaSpectralModel

observation_time: 50 h
observation_datetime: "2024-06-15 18:00"
extension: 0.0 deg
redshift: -1 # redshift of the source (for the EBL absorption), if -1 then no absorption
sum_trigger: False
zenith_performance: "low" # "low"=0-30deg, "mid"=30-45deg
# you can check visibility of your source e.g. here: http://www.magic.iac.es/scheduler/

ebl_file_path:

n_off_regions: 3 # number of background estimation regions
min_number_events: 10.0 # minimum number of events
min_ratio_signal_background: 0.05 # minimum ratio of excess to background

PSF: "0.1 deg" # PSF for worsening the performance for extended sources
offset_degradation_factor: 1.0 # degradation factor if observations are taken at higher offset then 0.4 deg from camera center

pulsar_mode:
  enable: False # if true the background is reduced to on phase (see below) and SBR cut is ignored
  pulsar_on_range: 0.092 # range of ON phases used for pulsar mode
  pulsar_off_range: 0.25 # range of OFF phases used for pulsar mode# global variables (DO NOT MODIFY)

plotting_options:
  figure_size: [20, 10]
  bbox_inches: "tight"
  min_energy: "40 GeV"
  max_energy: "20 TeV"
  energy_unit: "TeV"
  energy_flux_unit: "TeV cm^-2 s^-1"
  min_error: 2 # showing only points with value > minerror * error
  draw_sigma: True # whether to draw also sigmas on the plot# pulsar mode settings
  n_points: 15
  file_format: "pdf"
  merge_horizon_profiles: True

use_seaborn: True
seaborn_options:
  context: talk
  style: whitegrid
  palette: viridis
  font: sans-serif
  font_scale: 1
  color_codes: True
  rc:
    "xtick.bottom": True
    "ytick.left": True

Launch the simulation

You can use the iact-estimator command-line tool to simulate the response of the telescope(s) to the input source settings.

To produce the output in the current working directory for a source named “my_source”,

iact-estimator --config config.yml --source-name my_source

Output

Terminal

For each estimated energy range one gets the number of excess events, signal-to-background ratio, significance, and information if a given bin satisfies the conditions for the detection.

Plots

Tha package comes with a small plotting library that allows to plot information about the observability of the source and its spectral properties as seen by the telescopes.

Some of these functions are called by the main script, but all of them can be imported separately e.g. in a notebook (see the interactive example).

For a complete list of plotting functions, see iact_estimator.plots.