SN 1987A neutrino burst Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
The original Kamiokande paper reported a low-energy event cluster on 23 February 1987 above surrounding background. Inverse beta decay, , provides an electron antineutrino channel through Positron light. Neutrino-electron elastic scattering is more directional. The burst supported core-collapse supernova neutrino emission, with limited statistics and channel ambiguity.[ref]
Observation of a Neutrino Burst from the Supernova SN1987A by K. Hirata and others. pp. 1490–1493; Fig. 2, Table I and discussion
An original counting illustration shows why timing matters. Suppose an independently measured background is a Poisson process of rate . In a prespecified window , the probability of at least two background events isFor the synthetic choice , this is about , obtained by subtracting the zero- and one-event probabilities of the Poisson distribution. The Homestake experiment's delayed extraction cannot supply such capture-time clustering. This calculation is not a significance estimate for SN 1987A: searching many possible windows, varying acceptance and correlated backgrounds change the inference.
Stationary distribution of an M-M-infinity queue Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For every , an queue is positive recurrent and has the Poisson distribution with mean as its unique stationary distribution:
Stationary increments Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A stochastic process has stationary increments when the probability distribution of depends only on the duration , whenever both times belong to the index set. The clock origin then does not change the increment law. For Brownian motion, that law is ; for a rate- Poisson process, it is a Poisson distribution with expected value . Neither process itself is a stationary process: their variances grow with . Stationary increments and a stationary process describe different properties.
Stein-Chen method 2026-10-14
The Stein-Chen method compares an integer-valued count with a Poisson distribution by solving the Poisson Stein equation and estimating its expectation at the count. For sums of indicator random variables, dependency neighborhoods expose local overlap errors. This gives total variation distance bounds without having to compute the entire count distribution.
Superposition theorem for Poisson point processes Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The union of independent Poisson point processes with diffuse intensity measures is a Poisson point process with intensity measureOn every finite collection of disjoint measurable sets, this follows by adding independent Poisson counts and checking that the resulting counts remain independent.
Transmission electron microscopy specimen dose and calibration Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
JEOL's minimum-dose method focuses and corrects astigmatism away from the recording position before exposing it, reducing irradiation of the chosen field.[ref] A downstream objective aperture cannot undo irradiation that has already reached the specimen: rejecting more outgoing electrons does not itself reduce specimen exposure.
For an original dose budget, define as incident electron count per specimen area, rather than absorbed energy per mass. A uniform beam of electric current magnitude , illuminating area for time , giveswhere is the elementary charge. Choosing , and gives approximately incident electrons, or . This is an invented exposure calculation, not a safe-dose recommendation. Focusing and searching exposures must also enter the accumulated budget.
If detected counts follow a Poisson distribution, a mean count has standard deviation . Ignoring background, accepted counts therefore have relative counting uncertainty, while have . Reducing accepted counts can reveal useful diffraction contrast while increasing counting uncertainty. It is useful to specify both contrast and count budget when discussing electron microscope resolution.
A proposed measurement calibration sequence records a beam-blocked detector background, an illuminated empty support region, and a specimen image with fixed voltage, exposure and detector gain. Test detector linearity with exposure time before comparing corrected intensities. Calibrate the image scale against a known spacing, as in microscope scale calibration, and independently calibrate electron diffraction spacing at its own lens settings; one calibration does not supply the other. Register compared regions, record objective aperture selection, specimen tilt and accumulated exposure, then repeat the first setting to test drift and irradiation changes. These are proposed controls, not undocumented steps attributed to JEOL's silicon example.
Trapped-ion fluorescence count model 2026-10-18
For an original illustrative readout model, take detected photon count in a fixed exposure to have a Poisson distribution, with stipulated means for a bright state and for a dark state. Classify as bright. Direct summation givesWith equally likely preparations, the average misclassification probability is . These numbers describe only the chosen count model. Actual fluorescence includes short-time photon correlations, detector effects and possible state changes; it need not follow a fixed-rate Poisson process. Longer exposure can improve separation of count distributions while increasing unwanted optical pumping, metastable decay or recoil.
If the prepared bright population is , let and denote the two conditional errors above. The observed bright-label probability is , hence when the denominator is nonzero. Known-state controls must estimate in the actual apparatus; the formula cannot correct unknown drift. For independent preparations, the raw bright fraction has variance . Counting uncertainty, preparation error, pulse error and state-detection bias therefore enter different parts of the inference. Repeating a biased measurement reduces its sampling uncertainty without removing its bias.
For independent aggregate Poisson distributions with means and , conditioning on the total eliminates . Independent Poisson conditioning gives the displayed binomial distribution. Its conditional likelihood is proportional to , also the profile likelihood after maximizing over the unrestricted positive baseline rate. Unequal exposures replace the binomial success probability by .
Upper-truncated Poisson distribution Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A Poisson distribution of parameter conditioned to lie in . It is the occupancy law of a unit-resource loss network. Its mean is the carried load of an Erlang loss resource, . Differentiating the mean with respect to gives its variance, which is positive for and ; this proves strict monotonicity of the carried load.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy uses X-ray excitation to investigate electron removal energies, including those of core electrons. The common name electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis emphasizes its use in distinguishing chemical surroundings. The whole recorded spectrum can also contain electrons produced by processes other than direct photoionization; a peak assignment must identify the emission process as well as the chemical element.
In a modern implementation, a quartz crystal selects aluminum characteristic X-rays according to Bragg's law and focuses them onto the sample. Vacuum reduces gas collisions and contamination; a separately pumped entry chamber limits exposure to air. Lenses collect photoelectrons; an electrostatic electron energy analyzer transmits a narrow kinetic energy band. Stepping that band and counting detector pulses produces the spectrum. An electron flood source can compensate positive electric charge on insulating samples. Ion cleaning can alter vulnerable samples.[ref]
X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Instrumentation Features by Thermo Fisher Scientific. Sections Ultra-high vacuum system; XPS X-ray source; Electron analyzer; Ion sources; Charge neutralization
For a scan with count and dwell time at setting , compare rates , rather than raw counts when dwell times differ. Under an independent Poisson distribution model, the count standard deviation is approximately for a sufficiently populated bin. Longer acquisition reduces this relative counting measurement uncertainty; it does not automatically improve separation of overlapping peaks. Photoelectron peak overlap and resolution gives an example in which the same chemical separation produces either two maxima or one.
If zero-sized claims are allowed, a compound Poisson distribution count parameter need not be unique. Poisson thinning of zero claims gives the displayed positive-claim count parameter and the conditional claim size probability distribution given , without changing the aggregate. If no positive claims occur, the aggregate is identically zero. This matters when representing a finite weighted sum of Poisson distribution counts whose coefficients include zero.
Zero-inflated Poisson distribution 2026-10-03
Zero-inflated Poisson regression 2026-10-06
A zero-inflated Poisson regression specifies a structural-zero probability and a susceptible-component Poisson distribution mean . In this parametrization,The mean is . Logistic predictors for and logarithmic predictors for allow covariates to affect component membership and count intensity differently. A susceptible individual can still generate a zero count; susceptibility is not equivalent to an observed positive response.
Zeros trick 2026-10-06
A zeros trick implements a positive likelihood function by adding an observed zero with Poisson distribution mean . If this mean is nonnegative throughout the parameter support, its likelihood is and yields the intended Bayesian posterior. The constant must be independent of the parameter; arbitrary clipping changes the target.
Zero-truncated Poisson distribution 2026-10-05
