MaxLEV Documentation

MaxLEV (Maximum Likelihood Estimation for VPLanet) is a tool for finding the maximum likelihood parameters of VPLanet simulations given observational constraints.

With MaxLEV you can define optimization parameters, observational constraints with uncertainties (including asymmetric error bars), and use differential evolution or other scipy optimizers to find the best-fit parameters. MaxLEV performs comprehensive validation of all parameters, outputs, and body names against VPLanet’s actual options before running any simulations.

After optimization, MaxLEV generates:

• A results file with best-fit parameters, chi-squared, and residuals for each observable

• Modified VPLanet input files (*_maxlev.in) containing the maximum likelihood values

• Installation Guide
• Running MaxLEV
• Configuration Format
• Examples
• GitHub

Note

MaxLEV is designed to work with vplanet_inference for running VPLanet simulations. For posterior inference (beyond point estimates), consider using alabi after identifying the maximum likelihood solution.