STATISTICAL NOISE AND SPECTRAL ANALYSIS

Recent studies in spectral analysis, especially as applied to gamma ray spectroscopy, have indicated that two major sources of error exist. The first - drifting of the zero channel intercept and gain of the multichannel analyzer - has been studied in some detail. The second - statistical fluctuations in the spectra - is the subject of this paper. It is shown that errors due to statistical noise depend on the amplitudes of the characteristics peaks in the spectra. Numerical low pass filters are examined to see if any improvement can be effected. © 1968.