Central_object.luminosity

[kslong]

We have a variable called Central_object.luminosity. It is currently only called if the Central_object is an AGN and (I believe) if the spectrum has been read in. As noted in readthedocs, the luminosity is the 2-10 keV luminosity.

For stars, when we read in a spectrum, we set the luminosity from the Central_object.temp. The total energy within a frequency interval is set by the temperature and radius of the star, the detailed shape is set by the read in spectrum.

For boundary layers, we have Boundary_layer.luminosity. (For a read in model, we ask for the luminosity and the temperature). This is just slightly different from the star, in that the luminosity is specified and not determined.

Both are semi-reasonable choices but they are fairly confusing ( I have spent most of a day trying to understand why the models I have been testing against Sedona don't have an understandable normalization in the situation where all I really care about is a narrow line in one place in she spectrum.).

Possible changes include:

• Print warnings when Central_object.lumimosity is called ... and possibly for some of the other cases as well.
• Change the name of Central_object.luminosity to Central_object.x-ray_luminosity
• Add variables to define energy ranges in most of these cases.

@jhmatthews Can you please comment on what you think we might do.

[jhmatthews]

I think minimally changing the Central_object.luminosity to Central_object.x-ray_luminosity is a good call. But it's not ideal that you have to specify an X-ray luminosity (for example what happens if your source has no or negligible X-rays?). So really, either defaulting to "Lbol", by which we would really mean across the minimum and maximum frequencies used by python, or specifying minimum and maximum frequencies in the parameter file. would probably be a good idea.

[kslong]

Knox to implement this solution, but make sure that it is also fixed in Synonyms so old pf files still run.