Systematic and statistical errors in correlation estimators obtained from various digital correlators

A number of commercially available digital correlators is discussed with re spect to algorithms, systematic errors, and statistical errors. Special att ention has been paid to the determination of an influence of the temporal i ntegration of measured signals on autocorrelation functions measured in dig ital correlators. A calculation of the standard deviation for statistical e rrors in correlation estimators has been performed. The result is compared with the experiment. Favorable noise properties of the multiple-tau correla tor which have been reported in the literature are not confirmed. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(99)01012-6].