Quantitative assessment of fitting errors associated with streak camera noise in Thomson scattering data analysis

TL;DR

This paper develops a statistical model to quantify and incorporate streak camera noise in Thomson scattering data analysis, improving measurement accuracy and uncertainty estimation in high-energy density experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a formal method to account for streak camera noise, including a phenomenological noise model and covariance matrix construction for better data fitting.

Findings

Benchmarking against simulations validates the noise model.

Incorporating the covariance improves the accuracy of fit parameters.

The method enhances measurement uncertainty quantification.

Abstract

Thomson scattering measurements in High Energy Density experiments are often recorded using optical streak cameras. In the low-signal regime, noise introduced by the streak camera can become an important and sometimes the dominate source of measurement uncertainty. In this paper we present a formal method of accounting for the presence of streak camera noise in our measurements. We present a phenomenological description of the noise generation mechanisms and present a statistical model that may be used to construct the covariance matrix associated with a given measurement. This model is benchmarked against simulations of streak camera images. We demonstrate how this covariance may then be used to weight fitting of the data and provide quantitative assessments of the uncertainty in the fitting parameters determined by the best fit to the data. These methods will have general applicability to other measurements made using optical streak cameras.