phoebe 2.3.0

Add support for inverse problem solvers, including “estimators”, “optimizers”, and “samplers”

Add support for attaching distributions (as distl objects) to parameters, including priors and posteriors.

Add support for web and desktop clients via a light-weight built in phoebe-server.

Removed support for Python 2 (now requires Python 3.6+)

Implement optional gaussian processes for light curves

Implement phase-masking

Added official support for ellc and jktebop alternate backends

Per-component and per-dataset RV offsets

Fixed phasing in time-dependent systems

Distinction between anomalous and sidereal period in apsidal motion cases

Extinction parameters moved from per-dataset to the system-level

Added several new optional constraints

Overhaul of the run_checks framework

Updated scipy dependency to 1.7+

Numerous small bugfixes and enhancements

fix overriding mesh_init_phi as kwarg to run_compute

fix pblum computation to not require irrad_method kwarg

fix bundle representation to exclude hidden parameters

Improves the detection of g++/gcc version to compare against requirements during setup.

Add support for interstellar extinction/reddening.

Support for Python 3.6+ in addition to Python 2.7+.

Overhaul of limb-darkening with new ld_mode and ld_coeffs_source parameters.

Overhaul of passband luminosity and flux scaling with new pblum_mode parameter, including support for maintaining color relations between multiple passbands.

Ability to provide third light in either flux or percentage units, via the new l3_mode and l3_frac parameters.

Support for computing a model at different times than the observations, via the new compute_times or computes_phases parameter.

Transition from pickled to FITS passband files, with automatic detection for available updates. The tables can now also be accessed via tables.phoebe-project.org.

DISABLED support for beaming/boosting.

Allow flipping Kepler’s thrid law constraint to solve for q.

Require overwrite=True during add** or run** methods that would result in overwriting an existing label.

Constraint for logg.

Account for time-dependence (dpdt/dperdt) in t0 constraints.

Future-proof to ignore for passband files with extensions other than “.pb” which may be introduced in future versions of PHOEBE.

Fixes bug where irradiation was over-optimized and not recomputed as needed for eccentric or misaligned orbits. Introduced in the optimizations in 2.1.6.

Fixes ‘long’ location of spots on single stars.

Fixes treatment of spots on secondary ‘half’ of contact systems.

Fixes loading legacy files with a spot that has source of 0 due to a bug in legacy.

Fixes overriding ‘ntriangles’ by passing keyword argument to run_compute.

Fixes the polar rotation axis for RVs in contact systems with non-90 inclinations by re-enabling the alignment (pitch, yaw) constraints and enforcing them to be 0.

Fixes infinite loop when trying to flip esinw AND ecosw

Adds ability to flip mass (Kepler’s third law) to solve for q

Fixes bug introduced in 2.1.9 in which out-of-limits constrained parameters in an envelope were being raised before all constraints could resolve successfully.

Fixes applying t0 when importing legacy dataset which use phase.

Fixes ignoring other compute options when running checks on kwargs during run_compute.

Fixes loading legacy datasets which use phase (by translating to time with the current ephemeris).

Fixes loading legacy datasets with errors in magnitudes (by converting to errors in flux units).

Fixes plotting RV datasets in which only one component has times (which is often the case when importing from a legacy file).

Removes ldint from the weights in the computations of RVs and LPs.

Fixes a bug where parameter limits were not being checked and out-of-limits errors not raised correctly.

Fixes a bug where certain parameters would cause the meshing algorithm to fail to converge. With this fix, up to 4 additional attempts will be made with random initial starting locations which should converge for most cases.

Fixes a bug where comparisons between Parameters/ParameterSets and values were returning nonsensical values.

Comparing ParameterSets with any object will now return a NotImplementedError

Comparing Parameters will compare against the value or quantity, with default units when applicable.

Comparing equivalence between two Parameter objects will compare the uniqueids of the Parameters, NOT the values.

Fixes a bug where automatic detection of eclipses was failing to properly fallback on only detecting the horizon.

Introduces several other significant optimizations, particularly in run_compute.

Fixes a bug in hierarchy.get_orbits() for a single star hierarchy which resulted in an error being raised while computing line-profiles.

This fixes the inversion of the frequency constraint when flipping to solve for period.

Semi-detached systems could raise an error in the backend caused by the volume being slightly over the critical value when translating between requiv in solar units to volume in unitless/roche units. When this numerical discrepancy is detected, the critical value is now adopted and a warning is sent via the logger.

All constraints are now executed (by default) in solar units instead of SI. The Kepler’s third law constraint (constraining mass by default) failed to have sufficient precision in SI, resulting in inaccurate masses. Furthermore, if the constraint was flipped, inaccurate values of sma could be passed to the backend, resulting in overflow in the semi-detached case.

Bundles created before 2.1.2 and imported into 2.1.2+ will continue to use SI units for constraints and should function fine, but will not benefit from this update and will be incapable of changing the system hierarchy.

PHOEBE now detects if its within MPI on various different MPI installations (previously only worked for openmpi).

Add support for spin-orbit misalignment

Add support for line profile (LP) datasets

Switch parameterization from rpole/pot to requiv (including new semi-detached and contact constraints)

Significant rewrite to plotting infrastructure to use autofig

Introduction of nparray support within parameters

Significant rewrite to mesh dataset infrastructure to allow choosing which columns are exposed

Distinguish Roche (xyz) from Plane-of-Sky (uvw) coordinates

Ability to toggle interactive constraints and interactive system checks independently

Implementation of ParameterSet.tags and Parameter.tags

General support for renaming tags/labels

Expose pblum for contacts

Expose per-component r and rprojs for contacts (used to be based on primary frame of reference only)

Fix definition of vgamma (see note in 2.0.4 release below)

Remove phshift parameter (see note in 2.0.3 release below)

Permanently rename ‘long’ parameter for spots (see note in 2.0.2 release below)

Numerous other minor bug fixes and improvements

Set astropy dependency to be >=1.0 and < 3.0 (as astropy 3.0 requires python 3)

Handle ignoring extraneous spaces when importing a PHOEBE legacy file.

Previously, after loading from a JSON file, new datasets were ignored by run_compute because the _default Parameters (such as ‘enabled’) were not stored and loaded correctly. This has now been fixed.

PS.datasets/components now hides the (somewhat confusing) _default entries.

unicode handling in filtering is improved to make sure the copying rules from JSON are followed correctly when loaded as unicodes instead of strings.

Remove unused Parameters from the Bundle

Improvement in finding the boundary between the two components of a contact system

Handle missing parameters when importing/exporting so that a Bundle exported to a PHOEBE legacy file can successfully be reimported

Handle importing standard weight from datasets and converting to sigma

When requesting unit conversion from the frontend, astropy will now raise an error if the units are not compatible.

Fixed bug in which importing a PHOEBE legacy file of a semi-detached system failed to set the correct potential for the star filling its roche lobe. This only affects the importer itself.

Implemented ‘critical_rpole’ and ‘critical_potential’ constraints.

The definition of vgamma in 2.0.* is in the direction of positive z rather than positive RV. For the sake of maintaining backwards-compatibility, this will remain unchanged for 2.0.* releases but will be fixed in the 2.1 release to be in the direction of positive RV. Until then, this bugfix handles converting to and from PHOEBE legacy correctly so that running the PHOEBE 2 and legacy backends gives consistent results.

Fixed constraint that defines the relation between t0_perpass and t0_supconj.

Implement new ‘t0_ref’ parameter which corresponds to legacy’s ‘HJD0’.

Phasing now accepts t0=’t0_supconj’, ‘t0_perpass’, ‘t0_ref’, or a float representing the zero-point. The ‘phshift’ parameter will still be supported until 2.1, at which point it will be removed.

Inclination parameter (‘incl’) is now limited to the [0-180] range to maintain conventions on superior conjunction and ascending/descending nodes.

Fixed error message in ldint.

Fixed the ability for multiple spots to be attached to the same component.

Raise an error if attempting to attach spots to an unsupported component. Note: spots are currently not supported for contact systems.

If using spots, it is important that you use 2.0.2 or later as there were several important bug fixes in this release.

‘colon’ parameter for spots has been renamed to ‘long’ (as its not actually colongitude). For 2.0.X releases, the ‘colon’ parameter will remain as a constrained parameter to avoid breaking any existing scripts, but will be removed with the 2.1.0 release.

Features (including spots) have been fixed to correctly save and load to file.

Corotation of spots is now enabled: if the ‘syncpar’ parameter is not unity, the spots will correctly corotate with the star. The location of the spot (defined by ‘colat’ and ‘long’ parameters) is defined such that the long=0 points to the companion star at t0. That coordinate system then rotates with the star according to ‘syncpar’.

Definition of flux and luminosity now use ptfarea instead of pbspan. In the bolometric case, these give the same quantity. This discrepancy was absorbed entirely by pblum scaling, so relative fluxes should not be affected, but the underlying absolute luminosities were incorrect for passbands (non-bolometric). In addition to under-the-hood changes, the exposed mesh column for ‘pbspan’ is now removed and replaced with ‘ptfarea’, but as this is not yet a documented column, should not cause backwards-compatibility issues.

PHOEBE 2.0 is not backwards compatible with PHOEBE 2.0-beta (although the interface has not changed appreciably) or with PHOEBE 2.0-alpha (substantial rewrite). Going forward with incremental releases, every effort will be put into backwards compatibility. The changes and important considerations of the new version will be detailed in the ChangeLog.

If upgrading from PHOEBE 2.0-beta or PHOEBE 2.0-alpha, it is necessary to do a clean re-install (clear your build and installation directories), as the passband file format has changed and will not automatically reset unless these directories are manually cleared. Contact us with any problems.