Outputting the Results

The final stage in the program is to produce some form of output of the final line shape. The STEN program originally did this through a rather primitive ascii text file which summarised the model parameters and then printed the line shapes using the * character and an appropriate number of blank spaces. Although several other output methods have been added to the program this original version has been retained as it allows the program to run and produce output without the use of a windows system (ie. it could run on a simple text terminal if necessary). It is also the least likely output method to go wrong! Below is an example of a section of this file (called /tmp/stendump***.txt - see section 4.12.12).

 

 SPECTRUM CONVOLVED WITH A BEAM OF   0.010 PC (FWHP)
 GRIDDED CONVOLUTION 
 COLUMN DENSITY =   0.586E+14 CM-2
 Continuum Brightness temperature    0.000 K
 TEMP(K)  VEL(KM/S) TAU  TAUMID 
 0.737E+00  -1.89  0.02  0.00*                                        
 0.108E+01  -1.77  0.03  0.00 *                                       
 0.153E+01  -1.66  0.06  0.00  *                                      
 0.217E+01  -1.54  0.09  0.00   *                                     
 0.311E+01  -1.43  0.14  0.00     *                                   
 0.461E+01  -1.32  0.22  0.00        *                                
 0.685E+01  -1.20  0.36  0.00            *                            
 0.102E+02  -1.09  0.59  0.01                  *                      
 0.146E+02  -0.97  0.99  0.02                          *              
 0.193E+02  -0.86  1.67  0.06                                  *      
 0.225E+02  -0.75  2.77  0.17                                        *
 0.217E+02  -0.63  4.44  0.41                                      *  
 0.167E+02  -0.52  6.77  0.89                             *           
 0.109E+02  -0.40  9.65  1.71                   *                     
 0.706E+01  -0.29 12.73  2.89            *                            
 0.531E+01  -0.18 15.40  4.35         *                               
 0.466E+01  -0.06 16.99  5.81        *                                
 0.454E+01   0.05 17.06  6.93       *                                 
 0.479E+01   0.17 15.59  7.46        *                                
 0.552E+01   0.28 12.99  7.33         *                               
 0.701E+01   0.39  9.92  6.70            *                            
 0.976E+01   0.51  7.00  5.84                 *                       
 0.136E+02   0.62  4.62  4.97                        *                
 0.165E+02   0.74  2.89  4.24                             *           
 0.161E+02   0.85  1.75  3.67                            *            
 0.130E+02   0.96  1.04  3.24                       *                 
 0.935E+01   1.08  0.62  2.90                *                        
 0.631E+01   1.19  0.38  2.63           *                             
 0.420E+01   1.31  0.23  2.38       *                                 
 0.282E+01   1.42  0.15  2.16    *                                    
 0.197E+01   1.53  0.09  1.96   *                                     
 0.141E+01   1.65  0.06  1.79  *                                      
 0.102E+01   1.76  0.04  1.65 *                                       
 0.709E+00   1.88  0.02  1.55*                                        
 0.471E+00   1.99  0.01  1.48*                                        

  6.2426E+11 7 6 HCO+

Besides the graphical display of the line shape the actual temperature and velocity information for each point on the line is printed as well as the total optical depth of the cloud at that velocity and the optical depth of that particular transition at that velocity (TAU and TAUMID respectively). The final line at the bottom of each such output section lists (in order) the frequency of the transition, the upper and lower levels of the transition and the molecule being modelled.

Although this output method is very dependable it is not particularly flexible, nor well suited to producing high quality output. There is therefore now a PGPLOT routine which draws the results on a Xwindows system as they appear. In addition the output is written out to a file purely in numerical format so that is then available to other programs. This is initially done in the datastore.tmp file but when a run is selected to be saved this is copied to the run.*** file. In addition the contents of the eef, nn and kod arrays are written to the file lastcloud.dat once the lambda iteration section has been completed. This enables many different kinds of output for one model cloud to be produced (eg. for different beam sizes) without having to redo the lambda iteration section. The file .outputmode contains either a 0 or a 1. If it contains a 1 then the lambda iteration is not performed and the data is read in from lastcloud.dat instead.