Detector dead time

The interval during which a detector or readout cannot register another event while recovering from a response. A detector trigger may be fast while the camera, chamber or data acquisition is still busy.

In a simple nonextending model, every accepted event starts a fixed busy interval ${\tau }_d$; arrivals during it are lost and do not extend it. With Poisson process input rate $R$, the average cycle lasts ${\tau }_d+1/R$, giving observed rateThis is a specified mathematical model, not a universal correction. An instrument whose busy interval is extended by further arrivals behaves differently. Correcting the total rate also does not remove the multiplicity bias from a detector trigger.