Application of error analysis in the evaluation of electron beam potentials from the ratio of filtered X-ray detectors

Statistical analysis was applied to a set of filtered X-ray detectors to determine the most probable electron beam potential using the estimated variance of each measured ratio. Although this technique was used for potential measurements at both the Defense Threat Reduction Agency ACE 4 accelerator located at Maxwell Technologies and the NRL HAWK accelerator in Washington, DC, only the HAWK data are shown to illustrate the procedure. A weighting factor for each potential measurement was obtained by combining the estimates of the variances for each X-ray signal measurement used to obtain the ratio. The variance in the measured ratio was weighted by the rate of change of the potential with the specific ratio to make the weighting factor applicable to the potential measurement. The electron beam potential waveform measured by this ratio procedure was compared with the electrical probe measurements of the HAWK beam potential.