Decimated Signal Diagonalization for Fourier Transform Spectroscopy

A nonlinear parameter estimator with frequency-windowing for signal processing, called Decimated Signal Diagonalization (DSD), is presented. This method is used to analyze exponentially damped time signals of arbitrary length corresponding to spectra that are sums of pure Lorentzians. Such time signals typically arise in many experimental measurements, e.g., ion cyclotron resonance (ICR), nuclear magnetic resonance or Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, etc. The results are compared with the standard spectral estimator, the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). It is shown that the needed absorption spectra can be constructed simply, without any supplementary experimental work or concern about the phase problems that are known to plague FFT. Using a synthesized signal with known parameters, as well as experimentally measured ICR time signals, excellent results are obtained by DSD with significantly shorter acquisition time than that which is needed with FFT. Moreover, for the same signal length, DSD is demonstrated to exhibit a better resolving power than FFT.