Summary: | Pulse pile-up in pulse-height energy analyzers increases when the incident rate of pulses increases relative to the inverse of the dead time <i>per</i> pulse of the detection system. Changes in the observed energy distributions with incident rate and detector-electronics-formed pulse shape then occur. We focus on weak high energy tails in X-ray spectra, important for measurements on partially ionized, warm (50–500 eV average electron energy), pure hydrogen plasma. A first-principles two-photon pulse-pile-up model is derived specific to trapezoidal-shaped pulses; quantitative agreement is found between the measurements and the model’s predictions. The model is then used to diagnose pulse-pile-up tail artifacts and mitigate them in relatively low count-rate spectra.
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