Estimating a Signal In the Presence of an Unknown Background
arXiv:1112.2299 · doi:10.1016/j.nima.2012.05.029
Abstract
We describe a method for fitting distributions to data which only requires knowledge of the parametric form of either the signal or the background but not both. The unknown distribution is fit using a non-parametric kernel density estimator. The method returns parameter estimates as well as errors on those estimates. Simulation studies show that these estimates are unbiased and that the errors are correct.