Reader for Roche

Roche is a visualization and analysis tool for drawing the Roche-lobe grometry of evolving binaries. Roche can be used as a standalone program reading data from the command line or from a file generated by SeBa. Eventually Roche will be able to read data from any other binary evolution program.

Roche requires Starlab (version 4.1.1 or later) and the pgplot libraries. The latest version of Starlab can be obtained from the starlab web site. The pgplot package can be obtained from the pgplot web site.

What the program does

• Roche creates a series of images, based on the SeBa output file SeBa.data, displayin the evolutionary state of a binary. Here's an example:
  
  
• The white "figure 8" in the image represents the Roche surface of the binary system. The original primary (more massive) star is always drawn on the left. The center-of-mass of the binary system is indicated by a vertical dotted line.
• Stars are drawn circular unless Roche-lobe filling. The color of the star represents its effective temperature (scale bar at right). The stellar core is represented by a solid circle. However, the size of this circle relative to the size of the star indicates the core mass ratio, not the actual core radius.
• The labels at top left give time in millions of years, a representation of the binary system in``SPZFV'' format (see Portegies Zwart & Verbunt, 1996, A&A 309, 179), an indication of the state of the binary and, if applicable, the time scale on which mass transfer is occurring.
• The labels at top right indicate the binary period, current component masses, and orbital eccentricity. A scale marker is also shown.

  Various output formats are available. They can be selected with the -f command line option:
  
  

  0	series of ps files with name SeBa_????.ps
  1	series of gif files with name SeBa_????.gif
  2	single ps file
  3	single gif file
  4	xwindows screen (only for command line input)

  download entire source code of roche.tar.gz

roche.tar.gz contains the following files:

README	This file
Makefile	Makefile (based on starlab distribution 4.1.1 or earlier)
roche.C	Takes binary parameters (semi-major axis, eccentricity, primary and secondary stellar parameters) and constructs a PostScript or other graphic format file of the Roche geometry and the stars.
roche.h	Header file for roche.C
example.in	Example input file, generated with SeBa
example.log	Output from roche from the input file example.in
example.ps	The resultant postscript file from running % roche -f 2 < example.in
roche.txt	Text version of the manybody.org/roche html page.

Typical command line (generates example.log and roche.ps)

% roche < example.in >& example.log

For an example of how roche works try http://www.manybody.org/cgi-bin/starlab/binary_demo.pl.
For more information see: http://manybody.org


26 February 2003
Simon F. Portegies Zwart