LB Thesis SNR

Background Analysis

In order to find the SNR at [math] t_{Beam Off} [/math], the background was analyzed to check if it remained constant from [math] t_{Beam Off} [/math] until [math] t_{Measure} [/math]. First, the background was plotted for each concentration of Se/Soil and was overlaid with the the background in the pure sample for each respective target.

The clearest exponential behavior is seen in the 1% sample. The background rate dropped by 62% between the first and second measurements ([math] \Delta t [/math] = 7.5 minutes). This indicated that considering the background to be constant from [math] t_{Beam Off} [/math] until [math] t_{Measure} [/math], which was an average of 23.3 [math] \pm [/math] 2.67 minutes would not be sufficient. Since this was the case, an exponential fit was attempted on the 1% mixture data to find the half life of the background (even though this is still just an estimate).