Statistical bias in isotope ratios
Abstract
This paper presents the mathematics of the systematic bias in the expected value of the ratio of two noise- corrected Poisson-distributed variables, such as ion counting measurements. Such bias can lead to the reporting of incorrect ratios and, in some cases, systematic correlations with other measurements which can impact the scientific interpretation. We describe a novel method of treating such measurements which results in a negligible, exponentially small bias. We also re-examine the conventional approach deriving an exact expression for the bias including the noise correction explicitly.
Citation
Coath , C D , Steele , R C J & Lunnon , W F 2013 , ' Statistical bias in isotope ratios ' , Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry , vol. 28 , no. 1 , pp. 52-58 . https://doi.org/10.1039/C2JA10205F
Publication
Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0267-9477Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018 The Author(s). This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at: https://doi.org/10.1039/C2JA10205F
Description
Dr. Coath is supported in this work by STFC grant ref. ST/F002734/1.Collections
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