Speaker
Dr
Robert Lauer
(University of New Mexico)
Description
Astrophysical sources are now observed by many different instruments at
different wavelengths, from radio to high-energy gamma-rays, with an
unprecedented quality. Putting all these data together to form a
coherent view, however, is a very difficult task, for example when
performing a broadband fit of the energy spectrum of the source. Each
instrument has its own data format, software and analysis procedure,
which are difficult to combine. The Multi-Mission Maximum Likelihood
framework (3ML) aims to solve this issue, providing a common framework
which allows for a coherent modeling of sources using all the available
data, independent of their origin. At the same time, thanks to its
architecture based on plug-ins, 3ML uses the existing official software
of each instrument for the corresponding data in a way which is
transparent to the user. 3ML is based on the likelihood formalism, in
which a model summarizing our knowledge about a particular region of the
sky is convolved with the instrument response and compared to the
corresponding data. The user can choose between a frequentist analysis,
and a Bayesian analysis. Our implementation of these ideas is very
flexible, allowing the study of point sources as well as extended
sources with arbitrary spectra. We will review the problem we aim to
solve, the 3ML concepts and its innovative potential.
Primary authors
Dr
Giacomo Vianello
(Stanford University)
Dr
Robert Lauer
(University of New Mexico)
Co-authors
A Albert
(LANL)
C Rho
(U. of Rochester)
H Ayala
(MTU)
H Zhou
(LANL)
J M Burgess
(KTH)
J P Harding
(LANL)
Luigi Tibaldo
(KIPAC/SLAC)
Michelle Hui
(NASA/MSFC)
N Omodei
(Stanford U.)
P Younk
(LANL)
Segev BenZvi
(U. of Rochester)
