Ephemeris and Other Software

A software we need for referring of detector locations to the Solar System Barycenter has been gradually improved and now we are confident its accuracy is that of the JPL Ephemerides and at centimeter level in geocentric frame. The set of Fortran routines developed by us for the purpose can in fact be used for any ground detector/location and thus might be of general interest.

Generally useful is also a toolbox for MatLab named Astrom, that implements a few astronomical procedures (coordinate and time conversions). It has been created as another our by-product (last updated April 2, 2009).

We make available here also a description of a few auxiliary programs developed during initial phase of the search of Explorer data. These can be found under this link.

Einstein@Home Search

Recently a new search for gravitational waves from pulsars has been initiated by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration using data gathered during several data taking runs between 2002 and 2005. Their search is being carried out with the help of tens of thousands of home computers spread worldwide, which are running special software developed under Einstein@Home project. This massive virtual supercomputer has already (late summer 2005) finished analyzing data from the end of 2003 and beginning of 2004, and has started work on more sensitive data from the 2005 S4 Science Run. The search code uses optimal matched filter in the form of F-statistics derived by J. Jaranowski, A. Królak and B.F. Schutz.

In 2005 we have joined this great undertaking by forming a two-member team Kopernik, presently (2006) contributing part-time or full-time work of two computers.