We develop a photon energy measurement scheme for single photon counting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) that uses principal component analysis (PCA) to measure the energy of an incident photon from the signal (“photon pulse”) generated by the detector. PCA can be used to characterize a photon pulse using an arbitrarily large number of features and therefore PCA-based energy measurement does not rely on the assumption of an energy-independent pulse shape that is made in standard filtering techniques. A PCA-based method for energy measurement is especially useful in applications where the detector is operating near its saturation energy and pulse shape varies strongly with photon energy. It has been shown previously that PCA using two principal components can be used as an energy-measurement scheme. We extend upon these ideas and develop a method for measuring the energies of photons by characterizing their pulse shapes using any number of principal components and any number of calibration energies. Applying this technique with 50 principal components, we show improvements to a previously-reported energy resolution for Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors (TKIDs) from 75 eV to 43 eV at 5.9 keV. We also apply this technique with 50 principal components to data from an optical to near-IR MKID and achieve energy resolutions that are consistent with the best results from existing analysis techniques.

中文翻译：

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使用主成分分析提高光子计数微波动感探测器的能量分辨率

我们开发了一种用于单光子计数微波动电感探测器 (MKID) 的光子能量测量方案，该方案使用主成分分析 (PCA) 来测量来自探测器生成的信号（“光子脉冲”）的入射光子的能量。PCA 可用于使用任意数量的特征来表征光子脉冲，因此基于 PCA 的能量测量不依赖于在标准滤波技术中做出的与能量无关的脉冲形状的假设。基于 PCA 的能量测量方法在探测器在其饱和能量附近运行且脉冲形状随光子能量变化很大的应用中特别有用。之前已经表明，使用两个主成分的 PCA 可以用作能量测量方案。我们扩展了这些想法并开发了一种通过使用任意数量的主成分和任意数量的校准能量来表征光子的脉冲形状来测量光子能量的方法。使用具有 50 个主要组件的这种技术，我们展示了先前报告的热动电感检测器 (TKID) 能量分辨率的改进，从 75 eV 到 43 eV，电压为 5.9 keV。我们还将这种具有 50 个主要成分的技术应用于从光学到近红外 MKID 的数据，并实现与现有分析技术的最佳结果一致的能量分辨率。我们展示了之前报告的热动电感检测器 (TKID) 能量分辨率的改进，从 75 eV 到 43 eV，电压为 5.9 keV。我们还将这种具有 50 个主要成分的技术应用于从光学到近红外 MKID 的数据，并实现与现有分析技术的最佳结果一致的能量分辨率。我们展示了之前报告的热动电感检测器 (TKID) 能量分辨率的改进，从 75 eV 到 43 eV，电压为 5.9 keV。我们还将这种具有 50 个主要成分的技术应用于从光学到近红外 MKID 的数据，并实现与现有分析技术的最佳结果一致的能量分辨率。