Signal, Gaussian IRF#

When instrument response function is modeled as normalized gaussian distribution, experimental signal is modeled as convolution of exponentical decay and normalized gaussian distribution.

\[\begin{align*} {Signal}_g(t) &= ({model} * {irf})(t) \\ &= \frac{1}{\sigma \sqrt{2\pi}} \int_0^{\infty} \exp(-kx)\exp\left(-\frac{(x-t)^2}{2\sigma^2}\right) \mathrm{d}x \end{align*}\]

Let \(u=(x-t)/(\sigma\sqrt{2})\) then

\[\begin{align*} {Signal}_g(t) &= \frac{\exp(-kt)}{\sqrt{\pi}} \int_{-t/(\sigma\sqrt{2})}^{\infty} \exp(-u^2-k\sigma\sqrt{2}u) \mathrm{d} u \\ &= \frac{\exp((k\sigma)^2/2-kt)}{\sqrt{\pi}} \int_{-t/(\sigma\sqrt{2})}^{\infty} \exp\left(-\left(u+\frac{k\sigma}{\sqrt{2}}\right)^2\right) \mathrm{d} u \end{align*}\]

Let \(v=u+(k\sigma)/\sqrt{2}\) then

\[\begin{align*} {Signal}_g(t) &= \frac{\exp((k\sigma)^2/2-kt)}{\sqrt{\pi}} \int_{(k\sigma)/\sqrt{2}-t/(\sigma\sqrt{2})}^{\infty} \exp(-v^2) \mathrm{d} v \\ &= \frac{1}{2}\exp\left(\frac{(k\sigma)^2}{2}-kt\right)\mathrm{erfc}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(k\sigma - \frac{t}{\sigma}\right)\right) \end{align*}\]

So, experimental signal could be modeled as

\[\begin{equation*} {Signal}_g(t) = \frac{1}{2}\exp\left(\frac{(k\sigma)^2}{2}-kt\right)\mathrm{erfc}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(k\sigma - \frac{t}{\sigma}\right)\right) \end{equation*}\]

\(\mathrm{erfc}(x)\) is complementary error function, see dlmf section 7.2.

This is also equivalent to

\[\begin{equation*} {Signal}_g(t) = \frac{1}{2}\exp\left(-\frac{t^2}{2\sigma^2}\right)\mathrm{erfcx}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(k\sigma - \frac{t}{\sigma}\right)\right) \end{equation*}\]

\(\mathrm{erfcx}(x)\) is scaled complementary error function, see dlmf section 7.2.

Implementation Note#

When \(x>0\), \(\mathrm{erfcx}(x)\) deverges and when \(x<0\), \(\exp(-x)\) deverges. To tame such divergency, I use following implementation.

\[\begin{equation*} {Signal}_g(t) = \begin{cases} \frac{1}{2}\exp\left(-t^2/(2\sigma^2)\right)\mathrm{erfcx}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(k\sigma - t/\sigma\right)\right) & \text{if $t<k\sigma^2$}, \\ \frac{1}{2}\exp\left((k\sigma)^2/2-kt\right)\mathrm{erfc}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(k\sigma - t/\sigma\right)\right) & \text{otherwise}. \end{cases} \end{equation*}\]