A simple unfold method for Rutherford scattering, intense ion-beam spectrographs

Elastic Rutherford scattering with subsequent momentum analysis has become a powerful tool for analyzing intense, pulsed light‐ion beams for inertial confinement fusion studies. The ion spectrum is obtained by mathematical inversion of the data. This paper reports a product‐integration solution to the inverse problem which is readily adapted to rapid data analysis and is simpler in form than reported previously. While this approach introduces some unphysical (negative) components into the solution, these are often negligible. Discussed here are the unfold method together with its accuracy and precision.