Adding ground-based gravitational wave detectors to observatories.dat

Issue #39 resolved
Matt Pitkin created an issue

It would be nice to have the current ground-based gravitational-wave observatories included in the observatories.dat file, so I've attached a patch that does just that.

The positions are essentially taken from this file, using the VERTEX_LOCATION_X/Y/Z_SI values. The location references (based on the WGS-84 Earth model) are:

  • for the LIGO sites the come from LIGO-T980044
  • for the GEO600 site they come from the GEO600 website here (after applying the equations given in Sec 2.1 of LIGO-T980044 for the beam splitter latitude, longitude and height, as done on page 20 of LIGO-T010110, rather than using the value in metres give on the website)
  • for the KAGRA site they come from this document (and applying the equations given in Sec 2.1 of LIGO-T980044 for the beam splitter latitude, longitude and height)
  • for the Virgo site they come from a private communication with Benoit Mours, but are given on pages 19 and 20 of LIGO-T010110

How I actually extracted the values was using a function from LALSuite, which can be reproduced in python with (assuming LALSuite is installed by):

>>> import lalpulsar
>>> # get Virgo location
>>> det = lalpulsar.GetSiteInfo('V1')
>>> print('x = {0:.3f}\ny = {1:.3f}\nz = {2:.3f}'.format(det.location[0], det.location[1], det.location[2]))
x = 4546374.099
y = 842989.698
z = 4378576.962

>>> # get LIGO Hanford location
>>> det = lalpulsar.GetSiteInfo('H1')
>>> print('x = {0:.3f}\ny = {1:.3f}\nz = {2:.3f}'.format(det.location[0], det.location[1], det.location[2]))
x = -2161414.9264
y = -3834695.1789
z = 4600350.2266

>>> # get LIGO Livingston location
>>> det = lalpulsar.GetSiteInfo('L1')
>>> print('x = {0:.3f}\ny = {1:.3f}\nz = {2:.3f}'.format(det.location[0], det.location[1], det.location[2]))
x = -74276.0447
y = -5496283.7197
z = 3224257.0174

>>> # get GEO600 location
>>> det = lalpulsar.GetSiteInfo('G1')
>>> print('x = {0:.3f}\ny = {1:.3f}\nz = {2:.3f}'.format(det.location[0], det.location[1], det.location[2]))
x = 3856309.9493
y = 666598.9563
z = 5019641.4172

>>> # get KAGRA location
>>> det = lalpulsar.GetSiteInfo('K1')
>>> print('x = {0:.3f}\ny = {1:.3f}\nz = {2:.3f}'.format(det.location[0], det.location[1], det.location[2]))
x = -3777336.0240
y = 3484898.4110
z = 3765313.6970

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