lalsuite 7.26.9

LVK Algorithm Library Suite - LALSuite

Quick Installation

Basic installation:

$ pip install lalsuite

Optional dependencies:

• Packages needed by LALInference for Bayesian inference data analysis e.g. GWDataFind, GWpy:

  $ pip install lalsuite[lalinference]
  

• Packages needed by LALPulsar for pulsar and continuous wave gravitational wave data analysis, e.g. solar system ephemerides:

  $ pip install lalsuite[lalpulsar]
  

• Packages needed for testing:

  $ pip install lalsuite[test]
  

Overview

LALSuite is comprised of various gravitational wave data analysis routines

written in C (following the ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard, more commonly referred

to as C99) and Python. Its primary purpose is searching for and characterizing

astrophysical signals in gravitational-wave time series data, particularly data

from ground-based detectors such as LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA.

• Project homepage

• Installation instructions

• Frequently asked questions

• Reference documentation

• Building from source

• Contributing guide

LALSuite is licensed under the [GNU General Public License v2.0 or

later]GPL-2.0-or-later.

Acknowledgment

We request that any academic report, publication, or other academic

disclosure of results derived from the use of this software acknowledge

the use of the software by an appropriate acknowledgment or citation.

The LALSuite software suite as a whole may be linked to using the DOI

10.7935/GT1W-FZ16, or cited using the following BibTeX entry:

@misc{lalsuite,

    author         = "{LIGO Scientific Collaboration}

                      and {Virgo Collaboration}

                      and {KAGRA Collaboration}",

    title          = "{LVK} {A}lgorithm {L}ibrary - {LALS}uite",

    howpublished   = "Free software (GPL)",

    doi            = "10.7935/GT1W-FZ16",

    year           = "2018"

}

If you make use of the Python/Octave interfaces to LALSuite, please

cite the following paper:

@article{swiglal,

    title     = "{SWIGLAL}: {P}ython and {O}ctave interfaces to the

                 {LALSuite} gravitational-wave data analysis libraries}",

    author    = "Karl Wette",

    journal   = "SoftwareX",

    volume    = "12",

    pages     = "100634",

    year      = "2020",

    doi       = "10.1016/j.softx.2020.100634"

}

In addition, some codes contained in LALSuite may be directly based on one or

several scientific papers, which should be cited when using those specific

codes; some of these can be discovered through the documentation.

Components

LALSuite is comprised of the following components:

• LAL: Core gravitational wave analysis routines

• LALFrame: LAL wrapping of the LIGO/Virgo Frame library

• LALMetaIO: LAL wrapping of the MetaIO LIGO_LW XML library

• LALSimulation: LAL routines for gravitational waveform and noise generation

• LALBurst: LAL routines for burst gravitational wave data analysis

• LALInspiral: LAL routines for inspiral and ringdown CBC gravitational wave

  data analysis

• LALInference: LAL routines for Bayesian inference data analysis

• LALPulsar: LAL routines for pulsar and continuous wave gravitational wave data

  analysis

• LALApps: Collection of gravitational wave data analysis codes and

  pipelines utilising the LAL libraries

Project Librarians

• Adam Mercer

• Duncan Macleod

• Karl Wette

The librarians may be contacted via the help desk.

Documentation

Installation instructions and answers to frequently asked questions may be found on the LALSuite wiki.

The reference documentation for all LALSuite components is

generated using Doxygen. Documentation is available for the latest development

version of LALSuite, and for recent releases.

The LAL Specification and Style Guide document (commonly known as the *LAL

Spec*) contains the software specifications that code written for LALSuite

should conform to. The most recent version of the LAL Spec can be found

here.

Releases

The latest release is LALSuite 7.26, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball), which is comprised of:

• LAL 7.7.0, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALFrame 3.0.7, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALMetaIO 4.0.6, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALSimulation 6.2.0, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALBurst 2.0.7, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALInspiral 5.0.3, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALInference 4.1.9, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALPulsar 7.1.1, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

• LALApps 10.1.0, released 22 May 2025 (source tarball)

Previous releases can be found by visiting the [IGWN analysis software source

code server]lalsuitesources.

Sources

The LALSuite sources are located in the LALSuite Git repository.

See the following clonerepo on how to get started.

Mailing Lists

There are several mailing lists related to LALSuite development:

• LAL Announce: General LALSuite announcements, including releases

  (subscribe/unsubscribe, archive)

• LAL Discuss: Discussions of modifying/using LALSuite

  (subscribe/unsubscribe, archive)

• Computing Discuss: General IGWN Computing discussion

  (subscribe/unsubscribe, archive)

Developers should subscribe to the LAL Discuss and Computing Discuss mailing

lists as important development information is regularly posted and discussed on

these lists.

Reporting Issues

If you have ligo.org authentication, please report issues directly through

GitLab. Otherwise, you can use the help desk to send bug reports by

e-mail.

Before you file a ticket, please read and search through the list of

current and previous issues to determine if

your bug has already been reported.

If an issue already exists and has not been fixed, add any additional

information to the existing report. If your bug exists and has been fixed,

upgrade to the version detailed in the issue to confirm if it has been fixed

correctly. If it was not, please reopen the issue.

Please include as much detail as possible to reproduce the

error, including information about your operating system and the version of each

(relevant) component of LALSuite. If possible, please include a brief,

self-contained code example that demonstrates the problem.

Note that when an issue is marked as Confidential, currently this means that

most internal users will also not be able to see it, but only a small number of

people with reporter, developer or maintainer status.

Contributing

The guide to contributing to LALSuite explains how to contribute

fixes or new features using the fork and pull workflow. Please read and follow

these directions.