UNCERTAINTY INTERVALS FOR POLARIZED BEAM SCATTERING ASYMMETRY STATISTICS

Citation
Kj. Coakley et al., UNCERTAINTY INTERVALS FOR POLARIZED BEAM SCATTERING ASYMMETRY STATISTICS, Review of scientific instruments, 64(7), 1993, pp. 1888-1894
Citations number
10
Categorie Soggetti
Physics, Applied","Instument & Instrumentation
ISSN journal
00346748
Volume
64
Issue
7
Year of publication
1993
Pages
1888 - 1894
Database
ISI
SICI code
0034-6748(1993)64:7<1888:UIFPBS>2.0.ZU;2-9
Abstract
In many scattering experiments, the quantity of most direct physical i nterest is a measure of the difference between two closely related sca ttering signals, each generated by a Poisson scattering process. This difference is often expressed in terms of an asymmetry statistic, that is, the difference normalized to the sum of the two signals, correcte d for an additive background contribution. Typically, a propagation of errors approach is used to compute confidence intervals for asymmetry . However, these confidence intervals are not reliable in general. In this work, generally accurate confidence intervals for asymmetry are o btained using a parametric bootstrap approach. Based on the observed d ata, data are simulated using a Monte Carlo resampling scheme. The res ampled data sets satisfy a constraint that ensures that background-cor rected count rates are not negative.