A spatial density analysis technique for the automatic classification of 4/spl pi/ detector data

In nuclear physics at intermediate energies, the use of multidetector arrays consisting of thousands of detectors is customary. This paper presents a novel approach to the automatic classification of data collected by the 4/spl pi/ detector CHIMERA, constituted by 1192 telescopes of a thin silicon transparent detector coupled to a thick CsI(Tl) scintillator. The method is based on spatial density data processing and produces frequency distributions of the most significant physical parameters. These one-dimensional spectra can be more easily analyzed than the standard two-dimensional scatter plots. With respect to manual or semiautomatic procedures, presently used for data analysis, our method offers the advantages of drastic time reduction and unbiased criteria for cluster identification. The proposed method can be successfully used in both off-line data analysis and multidetector stability control.