Nonlinearity Corrections and Statistical Uncertainties Associated with Near‐Infrared Arrays

We derive general equations for non-linearity corrections and statisticaluncertainty (variance) estimates for data acquired with near-infrared detectorsemploying correlated double sampling, multiple correlated double sampling(Fowler sampling) and uniformly-spaced continuous readout techniques. Wecompare our equation for the variance on each pixel associated with Fowlersampling with measurements obtained from data taken with the array installed inthe near-infrared cross-dispersed spectrograph (SpeX) at the NASA InfraredTelescope Facility and find that it provides an accurate representation of theempirical results. This comparison also reveals that the read noise associatedwith a single readout of the SpeX array increases with the number ofnon-destructive reads, n_r, as n_r^0.16. This implies that the {effective} readnoise of a stored image decreases as n_r^-0.34, shallower than the expectedrate of n_r^-0.5. The cause of this read noise behavior is uncertain, but maybe due to heating of the array as a result of the multiple read outs. Suchbehavior may be generic to arrays that employ correlated or multiple correlateddouble sampling readouts.Comment: 21 pages, accepted by PAS