GWFrames

Gravitational-wave coordinate systems visualized in LaTeX.

Usage

This repository provides three packages, each with one command:

• cbc_frames_tikz (command \drawframes): plots a selection of source frame, signal frame, and celestial frame that are used to describe gravitational waves emitted by compact binary coalescences.

• cbc_binary_tikz (command \drawbinary): plots intrinsic parameters of a system of two compact binary objects. Adapted from code originally written by Jannik Mielke.

• earth_tikz (command \drawearth): plots one side of the Earth. Mainly intended for usage through \drawframes. Most of the credit for this code goes to Izaak Neutelings, who published it on https://tikz.net/astronomy_seasons/.

Keyword arguments to these commands are supported. Refer to the examples to get an overview over available options, a complete list is available in the accompanying documentation.pdf (if something is still unclear, do not hesitate to ask me).

Installation

Unfortunately, adding LaTeX packages is not as easy as Python packages. I do not claim to be an expert in this, but here are two ways I have found to make this work:

1. putting the relevant .sty files into the same directory as the .tex you plan to use them in. Then, \usepackage{cbc_frames_tikz} works. If your folder structure is slightly more complicated, something like \usepackage{../cbc_frames_tikz} works too (despite some complaints by LaTeX). This is also the preferred way in case you are using Overleaf.

2. setting the TEXINPUTS variable in your shell, so that the pdflatex command can find the .sty files in this respository. You can do this manually, or by running the install.sh script that comes with this repository, which does this in bash. To confirm that it worked, restart your shell and run kpsewhich cbc_frames_tikz.sty (should yield this repository).