Patent Document ID: 8274043
Application ID: 12302407
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for accurately estimating Fourier Transform mass spectrometry parameters comprising: obtaining a voltage signal produced by one or more ions in a mass spectrometer wherein the measured component of the ion trajectory is a sinusoid with fixed frequency and exponentially decaying amplitude characterized by a decay time constant, and the voltage is proportional to the measured component of the ion position plus additive white Gaussian noise; and finding the point where the partial derivatives of the data likelihood of the parameters consisting of initial magnitude, frequency, initial phase, and decay constant are all equal to zero from the voltage signal by using an iterative algorithm; wherein the parameter values obtained maximize the data likelihood, wherein the mass spectrometer is an ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer or a machine that measures the frequency of oscillation induced by a potential that varies harmonically in one direction.