AUTOCORRELATION EVALUATION FROM CLIPPED PHOTON DETECTION

We present two new techniques for estimating the autocorrelation funct ion, based on the measurement of the mean number of clipped photocount s and on the calculation of the second-order factorial moment of a ser ies of clipped data. The first procedure has the advantage of simplici ty, although it produces a poor signal-to-noise ratio. On the other ha nd, the second technique gives a very good signal-to-noise ratio, when compared with other known methods.