SNIP, a statistics-sensitive background treatment for the quantitative analysis of PIXE spectra in geoscience applications

Statistical fluctuations in X-ray spectra must be treated properly for reliable quantitative PIXE analysis. A background approximation that provides reliable treatment of fluctuations, the Statistics-sensitive Non-linear Iterative Peak-clipping (SNIP) algorithm, is described. Monte Carlo simulation demonstrates the stability of this background approximation, and hence the deduced trace element concentrations, over a wide range of counting statistics.