Program Name: MEPSA (multi-excess peak search algorithm) Author: Cristiano Guidorzi @ University of Ferrara, Italy Version: 1.0 Date: October 2014 1) PURPOSE ------------------ Search an input time series for peaks. Input time series is supposed to be background-subtracted (or just detrended), evenly spaced, affected by uncorrelated Gaussian noise. 2) INSTALL ------------------ Unpack the tgz file in your home directory, or wherever you want: tar zxvf MEPSA.tgz It creates a directory called "MEPSA". Enter the MEPSA directory. The program language is plain C code and its compilation is straightforward: cc -o mepsa.exe mepsa.c -lm At this point you should store the executable in a directory included in your PATH. 3) EXCESS PATTERNS MASK FILE ------------------------- file name: excess_pattern_MEPSA_v0.dat The excess patterns' mask file should not be modified unless one aims at optimising the code to one's own need (in which case we recommend a preliminary thorough testing before trusting the results. 4) TEST ------------------ An input light curve is provided in the MEPSA/test/ directory. To make sure the executable yields correct results, we provide an example. mepsa.exe input_lc.dat ~/MEPSA/excess_pattern_MEPSA_v0.dat 256 > mepsa.out Make sure the output content, saved to 'mepsa.out' in the command line above, is the same as that in file 'output.mepsa.out'. 5) USAGE ------------------ 3 arguments are required: 1. input time series (3 columns: time, rate, error on rate) 2. excess patterns' file 3. maximum rebin factor to be searched Argument 2 is provided together with the present C code. This could be changed by users themselves according to their need. In this case, we recommend preliminary thorough testing before trusting the results. Example: mepsa.exe input_lc.dat ~/MEPSA/excess_pattern_MEPSA_v0.dat 512 > mepsa.out