Minimum Detection Time Calculator

The following calculator returns the measurement (integration) time required to trigger a detection alarm. The true positive probability is fixed and set to 0.98, i.e., the source will be detected 98% of the time. The false  alarm probability (FAP) can be selected among three different values. For instance, a FAP of  0.001 means that if 1000 measurements are taken, only 1 will result in a false alarm.

Background count rate (counts per second):

Source rate (net counts per second, background subtracted):

False alarm probability: 0.01 0.001 0.0001

Measurement time (s) =