Separation Experiments

Abstract

Many experiments fall within the category of “separation experiments”. The purpose of these experiments is to separate two or more competing phenomena. As an example consider experiments in which counts are recorded from several decaying radioactive species over a given time period. The purpose of the experiment might be to determine the relative amounts of the species or perhaps to identify the species by computing the various decay constants. Another example relates to spectroscopy in which spectral lines tend to overlap. In astronomy measurements of light coming from overlapping light sources present difficult problems of analysis.