petitRADTRANS 3: most notable changes

Preface

petitRADTRANS 3 comes with a lot of quality-of-life features, optimization, and code rationalization, but also with breaking changes. A list of those breaking changes will be provided in a detailed changelog. Hereafter is a short summary of the most notables changes.

Added

  • Full integration of SpectralModel: a convenient and modular way to manage your models and run retrievals, both for low resolution and high resolution observations.

  • Full integration of Planet: the latest NASA exoplanet archive data accessible as easily as Planet.get("<planet name>")!

  • Automatic opacity files download: missing a file? Let petitRADTRANS download it for you! As a plus, now downloading the 12 GB default input_data folder at installation is no longer necessary!

  • Support for HDF5 opacity files: load opacities faster than ever!

  • Helpful error and warning messages.

  • Possibility to retrieve or optimize uncertainties (use with caution).

  • Data preparation of high-resolution observations: remove telluric contaminations with SysRem or polynomial fitting.

  • Simple transit light loss modelling (ingress, egress) for SpectralModel.

  • Useful built-in functions: convert from Bayes factor to sigma significance, calculate uncertainties, orbital phases, and more, with easy-to-use functions.

Changed

  • Functions, arguments and attributes now have clearer names.

  • Spectral functions of Radtrans (calculate_flux and calculate_transit_radii) now return wavelengths, spectrum, and a dictionary containing additional outputs, instead of nothing.

  • Function Radtrans.calculate_flux now output by default wavelengths in cm (instead of frequencies in Hz) and flux in erg.s-1.cm-2/cm instead of erg.s-1.cm-2/Hz. Setting the argument frequencies_to_wavelengths=False restores the previous behaviour.

  • Function Radtrans.calculate_transit_radii now output by default wavelengths in cm (instead of frequencies in Hz). Setting the argument frequencies_to_wavelengths=False restores the previous behaviour.

  • Object Radtrans is now imported using from petitRADTRANS.radtrans import Radtrans (was from petitRADTRANS import Radtrans) for more stable installation.

  • Improved petitRADTRANS memory usage.

  • Input data path is now stored in a config file within the folder <HOME>/.petitRADTRANS, generated when installing the package or using it for the first time.

Removed

  • Multiple Radtrans attributes, some are now function outputs.