HORACE: software for the analysis of data from single crystal spectroscopy experiments at time-of-flight neutron instruments

TL;DR

HORACE is a versatile software suite designed for analyzing large, multi-dimensional data sets from time-of-flight neutron spectrometers, facilitating visualization, manipulation, and modeling of scattering data.

Contribution

It introduces an extensible framework for analyzing complex neutron scattering data, enabling customized operations and detailed exploration of reciprocal space and excitation energies.

Findings

Successfully analyzed spin waves in RbMnF₃ and ferromagnetic iron.

Explored phonons in URu₂Si₂.

Demonstrated visualization and modeling capabilities for large data sets.

Abstract

The HORACE suite of programs has been developed to work with large multiple-measurement data sets collected from time-of-flight neutron spectrometers equipped with arrays of position-sensitive detectors. The software allows exploratory studies of the four dimensions of reciprocal space and excitation energy to be undertaken, enabling multi-dimensional subsets to be visualized, algebraically manipulated, and models for the scattering to simulated or fitted to the data. The software is designed to be an extensible framework, thus allowing user-customized operations to be performed on the data. Examples of the use of its features are given for measurements exploring the spin waves of the simple antiferromagnet RbMnF$_{3}$ and ferromagnetic iron, and the phonons in URu$_{2}$Si$_{2}$.