This repository contains a subclass of the rv_continuous class in Scipy for the Dimroth-Watson distribution.
The Dimroth-Watson (or just 'Watson') distribution is a distribution for the spherical polar angles, theta (inclination) and phi (azimuth). Phi is always a unfoirm random distribution. Given this, this class is only designed for modeling the distribution of theta.
This is a 1-parameter distribution, where the shape parameter, k, can take on values between negaitve infinity and positive infinity. For k>0, the distribution takes the form of a girdle, for k=0 the distribution is uniform, and for k<0, the distribution is bi-polar on the surface of a sphere.
The primary purpose for creating this class is to implement an effecient method to create random variates. Currently, random variates are generated using the rejection-sampling technique because the inversion of the CDF is non-trivial. Proposal distributions are taken from Best & Fisher (1986).
Downlod this directory and place it in your PYTHONPATH.
The primary class can be imported as:
from watson_dist import DimrothWatson
Tutorials can be found in this repository's notebooks directory.
The following dependencies are required in order to use this package:
- Numpy
- Scipy
- Astropy
contact: duncanc@andrew.cmu.edu