An analysis of error propagation in Abel inversions of spectral emission-absorption data

This paper investigates the effects of several influences upon the accuracy of Abel inversions which are performed upon spectral emission-absorption data that are obtained from axisymmetric sources of radiation.The influences that are investigated are the numerical step size that is used in the inversion, uncertainty in source diameter, and Gaussian noise superimposed upon the data. The effects of graphical and numerical data smoothing upon inversion results that are obtained with noisy data are also investigated. Graphical smoothing is found to be superior to quadratic curve fitting.