Simplification of γ-Ray Spectral Data by Using Fourier Transform

Abstract

A method is proposed to represent γ-ray response spectra by Fourier series for the purpose of compressing spectral data. The usefulness of the method was confirmed by applying it to a spectral library of a NaI detector. In the method, a response spectrum as a wave is described by superposition of sine (cosine) waves with low frequencies, whose coefficient parameters can be obtained by a Fast Fourier Transform program. The relation between the number of parameters and the fitting error is discussed, and as the result, it is shown that the number of parameters can be reduced to about a half. The merits and features are presented in practical application of the method to the analysis of γ-ray spectra.