Recursive threshold mass detector

Description

This mass detector is suitable for continuous data, which has too much noise for the Exact mass detector to be used, but which shows a consistent width of m/z peaks. The algorithm works in a recursive way. Initially, it looks at the whole range of data points. If the m/z width of this range is not within given limits, a minimum data point is found and used to split the range in two parts. The same algorithm is then applied recursively on each part. Recursion continues until all m/z ranges which fit into the given width limits are found. Final m/z values are determined as local maxima of the identified m/z ranges.

Method parameters

Noise level
The minimum intensity level for a data point to be considered part of a chromatogram. All data points below this intensity level are ignored.
Min m/z peak width
Minimum acceptable m/z difference between the first and last data point of an ion signal (m/z width). This parameter is used to determine when to stop the recursive search and discard peaks which are too small.
Max m/z peak width
Maximum acceptable m/z difference between the first and last data point of an ion signal (m/z width). This parameter is used to determine when to stop the recursive search.