ChangeLog

Version 4.8.3

This version of SOXS fixes three LEM RMFs, corresponding to the 2.5 eV, 1.3 eV, and 1.2 eV resolution versions. The first two are used in the the lem_outer_array and lem_inner_array instrument specifications, respectively. The problem was that the EBOUNDS extension of these RMFs had the CHANNEL column 0-indexed, when it should have been 1-indexed. This does not affect any spectral simulations, but it may affect plotting routines in other packages that use spectra produced by SOXS. Thanks to Adam Foster for raising this to our attention.

Version 4.8.2

This version of SOXS:

  • Fixes a bug in which it was impossible to create an exposure map for instruments without dither.

  • Drops support for Python 3.8.

Version 4.8.1

This version of SOXS contains a bugfix, where a spurious warning message about using instrument files in the SOXS data directory is removed.

Version 4.8.0

This version of SOXS contains a bugfix, a small change in behavior, and new response files for the XRISM instrument models.

  • A bug that occurred when SOXS was not able to find the location of the "CHANTYPE" header keyword in RMFs when making backgrounds has now been fixed. Thanks to Charles Romero for pointing this out.

  • When plotting an instrument spectrum using plot_spectrum(), if plot_counts is set to True, the y-axis will now be in units of counts/bin instead of counts/keV regardless of whether plot_energy is True or False.

  • New response files for the XRISM instrument models have been added based on those provided for XRISM AO-1, which in turn has resulted in new XRISM instrument models. See XRISM for details.

Version 4.7.1

This version of SOXS contains a critical bugfix. Occasionally, instrument files such as the ARF, RMF, and instrumental background files would be updated to improved versions with the same filename (this is particularly the case for the ACIS-I/S Cycle 0 files). What this should mean is that if a user had previously downloaded the files, they would be updated to the new version. However, the code was not checking for the existence of new files with different checksums properly. This has now been fixed. Users are encouraged to upgrade, and if they have used the ACIS-I/S Cycle 0 files, to check that they have the latest versions. The simplest way to do this is to do the following for each instrument of interest:

import soxs
arf = soxs.AuxiliaryResponseFile.from_instrument("chandra_acisi_cy0")
rmf = soxs.RedistributionMatrixFile.from_instrument("chandra_acisi_cy0")

Version 4.7.0

This version of SOXS contains new features and bugfixes.

  • Python 3.12 is now supported.

  • The foreground model normalization used in make_bkgnd_simput() was not being scaled appropriately by the field of view size. This has been fixed.

  • New useful attributes for Spectrum objects have been added. See Attributes of Spectrum Objects for more details.

  • The default SPEX version for CIE spectra has been updated to 3.07.03.

  • When loading an RMF, SOXS now checks the EBOUNDS header for the CHANTYPE keyword if it is not present in the MATRIX header. This fixes issues with the new LEM instruments released in version 4.6.0.

  • It is now possible to vary the abundance of the hot halo components of the foreground model. See Galactic Foreground Model and SOXS Configuration File for more details.

  • It is now possible to append the SIMPUT sources produced by make_bkgnd_simput() to an existing SIMPUT catalog.

Version 4.6.0

This version of SOXS contains new features and bugfixes.

  • It is now possible, in combination with pyXSIM version 4.3.0 or later, to use pyXSIM event lists written to HDF5 files as inputs to instrument_simulator(). See Instrument Simulation in SOXS for details.

  • A bug affecting the convolution of spectra with RMFs with multiple channel groups in the context of simulate_spectrum() has been fixed.

  • A new mode for simulate_spectrum(), which allows for the instrument specification to be a 2 or 3-tuple specifying the ARF, RMF, and particle background, has been added. See Simulating Spectra Only for more details. This has not yet been enabled in the command-line interface version of simulate_spectrum.

  • It is now possible to include the simulation of the MW foreground and the CXB in simulate_spectrum() for gratings instruments.

  • It is now possible to use multiple, separated energy bands when extracting events for the construction of an image using write_image(). See write_image for more details.

  • A bug that prevented the making of exposure maps for LEM instruments has been fixed. Thanks to Arash Bodaghee for reporting this bug.

  • LEM instrument configurations for 2.5 eV and 1.3 eV spectral resolution have been added, and should be considered the defaults, as these represent the baseline instrument. The old configurations are still present. See Line Emission Mapper (LEM) for more details.

  • The response files used for the "chandra_acisi_cy0" and "chandra_aciss_cy0" instruments suffered from the effects of poor calibration due to a high ACIS focal plane temperature. They have been replaced with response files that do not suffer from this issue.

  • The particle background files for the Chandra/ACIS imaging instruments and the Lynx imaging instruments have been updated with minor changes.

  • A new function to fill regions in an image where point sources have been removed, fill_regions(), has been added. See fill_regions for more details.

Version 4.5.3

This version of SOXS contains two bugfixes related to generating mock observations from SIMPUT catalogs which use FITS images for modeling photon positions:

  • The input image did not have an extension name in the SIMPUT spectrum file, so SOXS was not able to read it. This has been fixed.

  • The input image was not being rotated to the correct orientation. This has been fixed.

Version 4.5.2

This version of SOXS contains three bugfixes:

  • For instruments with image-based PSFs, the PSF image was incorrectly transposed. Thankfully, this only affected the XRISM/Resolve instrument, since its image is rectangular and asymmetric. This has now been fixed.

  • Default aimpoint coordinates corresponding to the detector center have now been added to simple, square-shaped instruments created with make_simple_instrument().

  • SIMPUT filenames are now no longer limited to 80 characters inside the SIMPUT catalog, and better handling is provided for filenames with relative paths. Thanks to Chang-Goo Kim for submitting PR 19 which fixes this.

Version 4.5.1

This version of SOXS contains two bugfixes:

  • A critical downstream bug in pyXSIM has been fixed, where normalizations of X-ray fields, spectra, and mocks that used the IGM thermal spectrum model were overestimated. Users who need this functionality are also encouraged to upgrade to pyXSIM v4.2.0.

  • Inputting a file name as the imhdu argument to from_spectrum() was not working, and has now been fixed.

Version 4.5.0

This version of SOXS contains a minor bugfix and a number of small new features.

Version 4.4.0

This version of SOXS contains critical bugfixes and one new feature.

  • There was an off-by-one indexing error in the production of energies for diffuse background spectra, as well as any spectra produced with simulate_spectrum(), which results in a small energy shift (almost always below the energy resolution). This bug has been fixed.

  • The "ENERGY" column in event files produced by SOXS now represent the energies that are approximated by the instrument response based on their channel. Effectively, this now means that these energies are at the instrument resolution. This is in line with what is present in real data. A new column in the event files, "SOXS_ENERGY", contains the energies incident on the detector derived from the source, which previously were in the "ENERGY" column.

  • Region files or expressions with multiple regions inside them are now correctly parsed when using filter_events() or write_spectrum().

  • It is now possible to create a spectrum without Poisson noise using simulate_spectrum() or the simulate_spectrum command-line script. See Simulating Spectra Only or simulate_spectrum for more details.

  • The "CHANNEL" field in the "EBOUNDS" data in the LEM RMFs was 0-indexed when it should have been 1-indexed. This has been fixed.

Version 4.3.0

This version of SOXS contains new features.

Version 4.2.1

This update to SOXS contains bugfixes.

  • The AXIS instrument specification was not working properly due to an issue with the implementation of the PSF file. This has now been fixed.

  • In several places, data from FITS files is now converted to the native byteorder of the system upon reading.

  • The minimum AstroPy version is now 4.0 and the minimum h5py version is now 3.0.

Version 4.2.0

This update to SOXS contains new features and a bugfix.

  • Installation and use on Windows 64-bit platforms is now supported.

  • New PSF models using encircled energy fraction (EEF) files are now supported. See PSF Models for more details.

  • The XRISM Resolve instrument specification has been updated, and a new instrument specification for Xtend has been added. See XRISM for more details.

  • The AXIS instrument specification has been updated. See AXIS for more details.

  • If one had not binned a Spectrum object more finely than the instrument’s ARF/RMF when using simulate_spectrum(), then gaps would appear in the resulting convolved spectrum. This is now handled by linearly interpolating the spectral model into the ARF energy bins.

  • The LEM instrumental background has been boosted to 1 counts/s/keV/(30’x30’) from the previous value of 0.07 counts/s/keV/(30’x30’).

  • A new function for creating a SIMPUT catalog including models for the Galactic foreground and the CXB point sources, make_bkgnd_simput(), has been included. See Creating Background Model SIMPUT Catalogs for more details.

Version 4.1.0

This update to SOXS contains bug fixes and two new features.

  • A bug that scaled the flux of SimputSpectrum sources incorrectly has been corrected.

  • Bugs that prevented SimputSpectrum sources from being used in SIXTE, SIMX, and MARX have been fixed.

  • It is now possible to specify a region file with creating a spectrum with write_spectrum(), to select a subset of events based on spatial region. See write_spectrum for more details.

  • The method get_lum_in_band() to compute the rest-frame luminosity of a Spectrum within an energy band has been added.

Version 4.0.0

This update to SOXS contains a large number of new features, mostly related to the generation of spectra.

  • New options have been added for the simulation of thermal spectra, including from SPEX, MeKaL, a CIE model based on Cloudy, and a model for emission from the IGM including photoionization and resonant scattering off of the CXB based on Cloudy and provided by Ildar Khabibullin. See Generating Thermal Spectra for details.

  • The option to create Spectrum objects with log-spaced energy binning has been added. See Spectrum Binning for details.

  • The option to create a new spectrum from an old one by rebinning has been added to the Spectrum class. See Spectrum Binning for details.

  • It is no longer necessary to source the HEADAS environment before creating a Spectrum object using either the from_xspec_script() or from_xspec_model(). See Generating a Spectrum from XSPEC for more details.

  • Reading and writing of Spectrum objects has been refactored, so that the tables use the min and max of each energy bin instead of the middle energy of the bin. This allows for log-spaced energy binning (mentioned above) to be supported. Also, Spectrum objects can now be written to FITS table files as well as ASCII and HDF5. See Reading a Spectrum from Disk and Writing a Spectrum to Disk for details.

  • An option to create a mosaicked event file in addition to an image file has been added to the make_mosaic_image() function. See Making Mosaics of SOXS Images for more details.

  • The default absorption model for the galactic foreground has been changed to TBabs.

  • The accuracy of the TBabs absorption model has been improved.

  • It is now possible to specify different abundance tables in the construction of the TBabs absorption model.

  • The galactic foregroud model now includes thermal broadening of emission lines, and it is also now possible to optionally add velocity broadening. See Galactic Foreground Model for more details.

  • The LEM ARF has been updated.

  • Instrumental background models have been added to the LEM instrument models.

  • The abundance table from Feldman (1992) has been added to the options for abundance tables for the ApecGenerator and SpexGenerator.

  • The default abundance table from Cloudy v17.03 has been added to the options for abundance tables for the ApecGenerator and SpexGenerator.

  • The command-line script make_thermal_spectrum has been changed to make_cie_spectrum and has many more options for computing CIE spectra. See make_cie_spectrum for details.

  • The command-line script make_igm_spectrum has been added for making thermal spectra with photoionization and resonant scattering. See make_igm_spectrum for details.

  • In the command-line scripts make_cie_spectrum, make_igm_spectrum, and make_powerlaw_spectrum, the parameter for foreground Galactic absorption nh has been renamed to nH_abs.

Version 3.4.0

  • The LEM response files have been updated.

  • The XRISM response files have been updated.

  • A bug that prevented multi-image PSF types to be used has been fixed.

  • The astrophysical foreground calculation method has been updated so that its spectral bins always match the binning of the RMF for the instrument being simulated, which results in more accurate spectral fits for this component.

  • The point-source background \(\log N-\log S\) distribution has been extended to fluxes up to \(S \sim 10^{-12}~\rm{erg}~\rm{s}~\rm{cm}^{-2}\). See Point Source Background Model for more details.

  • A diffuse component to the point-source background has been added, to model completely unresolved sources at low flux. See Point Source Background Model for more details.

Version 3.3.0

  • New instrument specifications for the LEM probe concept have been added, for spectral resolutions of 0.9 eV and 2 eV.

  • A new function for filtering event files, filter_events(), has been added. See filter_events for more details.

  • A number of small bugs have been fixed.

Version 3.2.0

Version 3.1.0

  • Python 3.10 is now officially supported. The minimum supported Python version is now 3.8.

  • For simulate_spectrum(), the power-law index for the unresolved point-source component of the astrophysical background is now \(\alpha = 1.52\).

  • An instrument specification for the LEM probe concept has been added.

  • A bug which prevented the use of the xrism_resolve instrument has been fixed.

  • The default neutral hydrogen column for the astrophysical background components is now \(n_H = 0.018 \times 10^{22}~\rm{atoms}~\rm{cm}^{-2}\)

  • The default value of the neutral hydrogen column and the absorption model for astrophysical backgrounds can now be set in SOXS Configuration File. These can no longer be fine tuned in make_background_file() or simulate_spectrum().

  • The default APEC version can now be set in the SOXS Configuration File.

  • The keyword argument input_pt_sources has been added to the instrument_simulator(), to allow a consistent set of point sources to be simulated. See Saving the Point Source Properties to Disk for Later Use for information on how to create this file. The keyword argument to do the same for make_background_file() is now renamed to input_pt_sources from input_sources for consistency.

Version 3.0.2

This version of SOXS contains bug fixes and a minor new feature.

  • Relative paths are now handled correctly in SIMPUT catalogs.

  • A number of problems in parsing instrument specifications have been fixed.

  • A bug which caused a crash when an RMF with N_CHAN = 0 in columns has been fixed.

  • ConvolvedSpectrum objects can now be added and subtracted.

  • Doc examples which use pyXSIM now use pyXSIM 3.0.0.

Version 3.0.1

This bugfix update to SOXS contains bug fixes and a minor new feature.

  • A bug which prevented SIMPUT photon lists written by SOXS to be read in by SIXTE has been fixed.

  • A bug which prevented the use of instrumental background files which do not contain the "EXPOSURE" keyword in the header has been fixed.

  • add_instrument_to_registry() now catches more errors in the setup of custom instruments and flags them informatively.

  • Subtraction of two Spectrum objects is now possible.

Version 3.0.0

This major version update of SOXS contains new features and optimizations. NOTE: there are some backwards-incompatible changes in this release.

  • SOXS now supports two new PSF model types, "image", which uses a single FITS image for the PSF model, and "multi_image", which can use a number of FITS images corresponding to different incident photon energies and different off-axis angles. See PSF Models for details.

  • SOXS now uses standard PHA files with FITS tables of channel and count rate to create instrumental/particle background. See Instrumental Background for more details.

  • SOXS now supports “spectrum” SIMPUT sources, with and without images, for generating mock observations. See SIMPUT for details.

  • SOXS now uses the “spectrum” SIMPUT sources in all of the command line scripts which create spatial models, so the signatures of those scripts have changed. See Command Line Scripts for Spatial Models for details.

  • The Python function make_point_source_list() and the command line script make_point_source_list no longer require the exp_time and area arguments.

  • The capability to create mosaics of multiple SOXS event files into a single FITS image, with options for exposure correction, has been added. See Making Mosaics of SOXS Images for details.

  • It is no longer necessary to download response files manually, as response files will now be downloaded automatically if they are needed to simulate an observation or create a spectrum. See response_files for details.

  • Similarly, the latest version of the APEC tables is no longer packaged with SOXS, both the CIE and NEI versions of the APEC tables will be downloaded automatically if they are needed. See Generating Thermal Spectra for details.

  • SOXS now uses the new 201-bin temperature files from AtomDB for thermal spectrum models.

  • The SOXS configuration option "response_path" has been changed to "soxs_data_dir" and the former is deprecated. See SOXS Configuration File for details.

  • All instrument specifications must now specifically implement at least one chip explicitly, so it is no longer permissible to specify the "chips" argument to be None. This is a backwards-incompatible change.

  • Generating the galactic foreground and the instrumental background is now faster and uses less memory.

  • Exposure map calculation now uses far less memory and is slightly faster.

  • New options have been added to the plot_spectrum() function. See plot_spectrum for details.

  • Chandra grating responses for ACIS-S have been updated to Cycle 22.

  • SOXS now uses the AstroPy Regions package for region handling.

  • An option for writing ds9 regions corresponding to the sky positions and sizes of the halos from events created from the cosmology source catalog has been added. See Cosmological Source Catalog for more details.

  • The DoubleBetaModel spatial source model has been added (see DoubleBetaModel), along with the command-line script make_double_beta_model_source.

  • The make_beta_model command line script has been renamed to make_beta_model_source.

  • An instrument specification for the *STAR-X* mission concept has been added.

Version 2.3.0

This version of SOXS fixes a few bugs, updates instrument specifications, and adds a speedup for certain types of RMF convolutions. Support for Python 2.7 has been dropped in this release.

  • Fixed an issue in cosmological sources generation where comoving units were assumed when they should have been proper.

  • Fixed an issue where the make_thermal_spectrum command-line script had the wrong default version of APEC specified.

  • Chandra imaging responses for ACIS-I and ACIS-S have been updated to Cycle 22.

  • The XRISM/Resolve ARF has been updated to use a version with higher effective area. See the XRISM section of Instrument Simulation in SOXS for more information.

  • RMF convolutions are now faster in most situations.

  • The field of view for the Lynx/HDXI has been increased from 20 arcmin to 22 arcmin.

Version 2.2.0

This version of SOXS focuses on new instrument modes and response files, as well as containing bugfixes and improvements. This version supports Python 2.7, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7.

  • Fixed an issue where an invalid APEC version was being found when the user did not specify a path to the AtomDB tables. Thanks to David Turner for this bugfix.

  • The Lynx microcalorimeter, now named “LXM”, has been split into three subarrays, currently corresponding to three different instrument modes.

  • The only Lynx mirror configuration currently available is the \(d = 3~m, f = 10~m\) system. All other confiugrations have been removed in this version of SOXS.

  • A new naming scheme has been adopted for many instruments for clarity, but the old names will be accepted with a warning.

  • The Chandra Cycle 19 responses have been replaced by their Cycle 20 versions.

  • The Athena response files have been updated to their latest versions.

  • The Hitomi SXS instrument mode has been replaced by the XRISM Resolve instrument mode, and the response files have been updated accordingly.

For more information on the new instrument configurations, consult the Instrument Simulation in SOXS section of the User’s Guide.

Version 2.1.0

This release of SOXS provides new features, bugfixes, optimizations, and other improvements.

  • The 2.1.x series of SOXS will be the last to support Python 2.7.

  • Support for non-equilibrium ionization plasma emission using AtomDB has been added to SOXS. see Non-Equilibrium Ionization Spectra with APEC for more details.

  • The default AtomDB/APEC version provided with SOXS is now v3.0.9.

  • Generating spectra without imaging using (see Simulating Spectra Only) is now faster, especially for high-resolution instruments such as microcalorimeters and gratings.

  • The default abundance table used when generating thermal spectra can now be set in the SOXS configuration file. See Changing the Solar Abundance Table for more information.

  • Absorption lines can now be added to spectra. See Adding Absorption Lines to a Spectrum for more information.

  • A new function for generating a simple imaging instrument based on an existing instrument specification has been added. See Making Simple Square-Shaped Instruments for more information.

  • A bug that prevented the multiplication of a BackgroundSpectrum object by a constant has been fixed.

  • New convenience methods for generating AuxiliaryResponseFile and RedistributionMatrixFile objects directly from existing instrument specification names has been added.

  • A new keyword argument, plot_counts, has been added to the plot_spectrum() function which allows the counts instead of the count rate to be plotted.

  • The response files and instrumental background for the AXIS mission have been updated to their latest versions.

Version 2.0.0

This is a major new release with a number of important new features and some bugfixes.

Most Important New Features and Changes

  • Beginning with this version and going forward, response files will not be included when SOXS is installed, primarily due to space considerations. Response files should be downloaded from the Response Files for Lynx page either separately or as a whole. Instrument simulation can be performed with the response files located in the current working directory or in the default response_path specified in the SOXS configuration file. See SOXS Configuration File, Path to SOXS Data Files, and Path to the Response Files for more details.

  • A configuration file can now be used with SOXS. See SOXS Configuration File for more details.

  • The ability to simulate gratings spectra with simulate_spectrum() and the simulate_spectrum command-line tool has been added. See A Note About Simulations with Grating Instruments for more information and Making Custom Non-Imaging and Grating Instruments for instructions on how to make a custom gratings instrument specification. Special thanks to Lia Corrales for useful discussions and advice with respect to gratings spectra.

  • The SimputCatalog and PhotonList classes have been added for improved SIMPUT catalog handling, which greatly simplifies the simulation of sources. See SIMPUT for more information.

  • A bug that prevented backgrounds from being added from a file properly to simulations with a non-zero roll angle has been fixed.

Changes to Simulation of Spectra

  • A number of class methods for Spectrum and their associated command-line scripts now have emin, emax, and nbins as required arguments. Previously these were optional arguments. More information can be found at Creating and Using Spectra and Command Line Scripts for Spectra. These are backwards-incompatible changes.

  • The interpolating spline which allowed Spectrum objects to be called with an energy argument to get the values of the spectrum for arbitrary energies was not being regenerated if the spectrum was changed, say by foreground absorption. This has been fixed.

  • The ability to apply intrinsic foreground absorption to a Spectrum has been added by adding an optional redshift argument to apply_foreground_absorption().

  • A method to easily plot Spectrum objects, plot(), has been added. See Plotting Spectra for details.

  • For APEC spectra created using ApecGenerator, it is now possible to use Solar abundance tables other than the implicitly assumed Anders & Grevesse 1989. See Changing the Solar Abundance Table and Command Line Scripts for Spectra for details.

  • The accuracy of the TBabs absorption model interpolation in SOXS has been improved.

  • A method to add individual Gaussian-shaped lines to a Spectrum, add_emission_line(), has been added.

  • The ability to write Spectrum objects to HDF5 files has been added via the write_h5_file() method. See Writing a Spectrum to Disk for details.

Changes to Instrument Simulation

Changes to Instrument Specifications

  • An instrument specification for the Lynx gratings has been added to the instrument registry.

  • Instrument specifications for Chandra/ACIS-S have been added to the instrument registry. Special thanks to Andrea Botteon for supplying the model for the ACIS-S particle background.

  • Instrument specifications for Chandra/ACIS-S with the HETG have been added to the instrument registry. The instrument models correspond to the MEG and HEG \(\pm\) first order.

  • The Chandra/ACIS-I instrument specifications for Cycle 18 have been replaced with Cycle 19 specifications.

  • When defining instrument specifications, it is now possible to specify a per-chip particle background model. See Making Custom Instruments for more details.

  • An instrument specification for the AXIS mission concept has been added.

Version 1.3.0

This is a release with important new features and some bugfixes.

  • SOXS now includes the ability to implement instruments with more than one chip with gaps in between, and chips which are not square in size. See Instrument Simulation in SOXS for more information.

  • The Chandra ACIS-I instrument specifications have been changed so that they implement 4 chips in a 2x2 array, using the new SOXS chip functionality. The old specifications still exist in the instrument registry as "acisi_cy0_old" and "acisi_cy18_old".

  • The Athena WFI and X-IFU instrument specifications have been changed so that they more closely match the current models, using the new SOXS chip functionality. The old specifications still exist in the instrument registry as "athena_wfi_old" and "athena_xifu_old".

  • SOXS now has the ability to create exposure maps for SOXS simulations and use them when making images and radial profiles. See Event File Tools and Command Line Scripts for Processing Events for more information.

  • Many arguments to functions and command line scripts which have units (such as exposure time, field of view, area, temperature, etc.) now accept arguments with units. See Special Argument Handling for Quantities with Units and Special Argument Handling for Quantities with Units for more information.

  • The “square” and “circle” dither pattern options have been replaced with a single option, a Lissajous pattern like that used by Chandra. This is a backwards-incompatible change.

  • New methods have been added to create ConvolvedSpectrum objects and deconvolve them to Spectrum objects. See “Convolved” Spectra for more details.

  • A method to extract a subset of a spectrum and create a new one, new_spec_from_band(), has been added.

  • Spectrum objects are now “callable”, taking an energy or an array of energies, at which the flux values will be interpolated.

  • ApecGenerator objects can now generate spectra that vary the elemental abundances separately. See Generating Thermal Spectra and cmd-make-thermal-spectrum for more details.

  • ApecGenerator objects can now generate spectra without line emission. See Generating Thermal Spectra and cmd-make-thermal-spectrum for more details.

  • A bug that prevented one from adding new instrumental background spectra to the instrumental background spectrum registry has been fixed.

  • A bug that resulted in spectra being plotted with the incorrect energies in plot_spectrum() has been fixed.

Version 1.2.0

This is a release with three new features, a change in AtomDB version, and some fixes to the documentation.

  • An instrument specification for the Hitomi/SXS has been added. Thanks to Eric Miller of MIT for generating the response files.

  • There are now two options for absorption models, “wabs” and “tbabs”. All tools which take a parameter for the Galactic hydrogen column nH now take an optional parameter which can be set to "wabs" or "tbabs". The default is still "wabs".

  • SOXS now bundles only one version of the AtomDB tables, v3.0.8. It is still possible to point to your own directory containing a different version.

  • The from_file() method now accepts HDF5 files as input.

  • Various minor corrections to the documentation were made.

Version 1.1.1

This is a release with a single minor feature addition, which allows the foreground galactic absorption parameter nH to be supplied to make_background_file(), which is applied to the point-source background.

Version 1.1.0

This is an important release that contains new features and bugfixes.

  • The ability to provide an ASCII table of point source properties to re-use the same distribution of point sources has been added to make_point_sources_file() and make_background_file().

  • A new function, make_point_source_list(), has been added to provide a way to generate an ASCII table of point source properties for input into making background files and point source catalogs without having to create the events.

  • For the point-source background, the photon spectral index for the galaxies is now \(\alpha = 2\), and the photon spectral index for the AGN is drawn from a fit to Figure 13a from Hickox & Markevitch 2006.

  • The Athena instrument models have been updated to more accurately reflect the current design parameters.

  • A bug that prevented one from using an instrument model that did not have an instrumental background has been fixed.

  • An experimental feature to turn off uniform randomization of events within pixels has been added.

  • Dithering now occurs in detector coordinates instead of sky coordinates.

Version 1.0.1

This is a bugfix release to fix the fact that the soxs.background submodule was not being imported properly.

Version 1.0.0

This version is a major new release with a complete revamp of the way that SOXS handles backgrounds, as well as a number of other new features and bugfixes.

  • Backgrounds will now either be added when running the instrument simulator or can be created separately for a particular instrument, saved to an event file, and then used for multiple observations. This enables one to avoid having to create a background for every observation, which can be prohibitive for long exposures.

  • Added a point-source component to the astrophysical background.

  • The background keyword arguments for instrument_simulator() are now instr_bkgnd, foreground, and ptsrc_bkgnd. astro_bkgnd has been removed. This is a backwards-incompatible change.

  • Added the capability to create a source composed of cosmological halos drawn from a cosmological simulation.

  • Instrument specifications for Chandra/ACIS-I have been added, with responses from Cycle 0 and Cycle 18.

  • SOXS now has the new dependencies of h5py and SciPy, as well as AstroPy version 1.3.

  • Added the ability to specify a name for a source in a SIMPUT catalog when writing a photon list file.

  • Test coverage has been improved, especially for backgrounds.

  • Tests are now performed on Python versions 2.7, 3.5, and 3.6.

  • In the Python interface, integers may now be provided for random seeds as arguments to functions.

  • An argument to provide a random seed to generate a consistent set of random numbers has been added to all of the command line scripts which make use of random numbers.

  • Fixed a bug in determining the detector and chip coordinates of events when creating an event file.

  • The clobber argument for overwriting files has been replaced by overwrite. This is a backwards-incompatible change.

Version 0.5.1

This version is a bugfix release.

  • Fixed a big when writing FITS table files when AstroPy 1.3 is installed.

Version 0.5.0

This version contains new features and bugfixes.

  • The PSF can now be set to None (or null in JSON files) in an instrument specification for no PSF scattering of events.

  • The particle background can be set to None (or null in JSON files) in an instrument specification for no particle background.

  • A faster progress bar, tqdm, is now in use in SOXS.

  • Fixed a minor bug in the interpolation of APEC tables for thermal spectra. The difference in the generated spectra is small, at around the fifth decimal place.

  • Added a constant spectrum generator: from_constant().

  • Added ellipticity and angle parameters to RadialFunctionModel objects to create models with ellipticity.

  • Added flat-field coordinates to SpatialModel objects.

  • Made public subclass of Spectrum objects, ConvolvedSpectrum, which is a Spectrum convolved with an ARF.

  • Small internal changes designed to provide a more seamless interface to pyXSIM.

  • Three new tools have been included to produce derivative products from event files:

    • write_image(): Bins events into an image and writes it to a FITS file.

    • write_spectrum(): Bins events into a spectrum and writes it to a FITS file.

    • write_radial_profiles(): Bins events into a radial profile and writes it to a FITS file.

Version 0.4.0

This version contains new features and bugfixes. Some changes are not backwards-compatible.

  • SOXS has been re-branded as “Simulating Observations of X-ray Sources”.

  • Instrument specifications for the Athena WFI and X-IFU have been added to the instrument registry.

  • A test suite infrastructure has been added to SOXS, which runs automatically on GitHub when changes are made to the source code.

  • Simulating backgrounds without an input source is now possible by providing None to instrument_simulator() or "None" to the instrument_simulator command line script (see Command Line Scripts for the Instrument Simulator).

  • The default astrophysical background in SOXS was not identical to the advertised input spectrum, which has been fixed.

  • The options for dealing with background have been restricted. Backgrounds can now only be turned on and off. The keyword arguments to instrument_simulator() for dealing with background have been correspondingly modified (see Instrument Simulation in SOXS and Command Line Scripts for the Instrument Simulator). This is a backwards-incompatible change.

  • The default version of APEC in ApecGenerator is now version 2.0.2, to match XSPEC.

  • A new option has been added to the instrument specification to turn dithering on and off by default for a given instrument. Please change instrument specification JSON files accordingly.

  • Instead of the plate scale, the instrument field of view is specified in the instrument specification, and the plate scale is calculated from this and the number of pixels. Please change instrument specification JSON files accordingly.

Version 0.3.1

This is a bugfix release.

  • The RMF for the HDXI was updated so that the binning between it and the HDXI ARFs is consistent.

  • Various small edits to the documentation were made.

Version 0.3.0

This version contains new features and bugfixes.

  • An Athena-like microcalorimeter background is now the default particle background for all microcalorimeter models.

  • All instrumental backgrounds now have a dependence on the focal length. The focal length is now an element of the instrument specification.

  • The names of the instruments in the instrument registry were made consistent with their associated keys.

  • A convenience function, get_flux_in_band(), has been added.

  • A new method of generating a spectrum from an XSPEC script, from_xspec_script(), has been added.

  • The from_xspec() method has been renamed to from_xspec_model().

  • Removed unnecessary commas between coordinate values from the examples in Command Line Scripts for Spatial Models.

  • Added a new capability to create a SIMPUT file from an ASCII table of RA, Dec, and energy, in the make_phlist_from_ascii command-line script.

  • Added a new class for creating rectangle/line-shaped sources, RectangleModel, and a corresponding command-line script, make_rectangle_source.

  • The signature of write_photon_list has changed to accept a flux argument instead of exposure time and area.

Version 0.2.1

This is a bugfix release.

  • The supporting files (ARFs, RMFs, spectral files, etc.) were not being bundled properly in previous versions.

Version 0.2.0

This version contains new features.

  • New ARFs corresponding to various configurations of the mirrors have been added and the old ARFs have been removed (November 1st, 2016).

  • Documentation now includes references to ways of getting help and the license.

Version 0.1.1

This is solely a bugfix release.

  • Fixed a bug where the dither did not have the correct width.

  • Fixed a bug for cases with no dithering.

  • Various minor improvements to the documentation