Effect on null spaces of list-mode imaging systems due to increasing the number of attributes

Abstract

There are two types of uncertainty in image reconstructions from list-mode data: statistical and deterministic. One source of statistical uncertainty is the finite number of attributes of the detected particles, which are sampled from a probability distribution on the attribute space. A deterministic source of uncertainty is the effect that null functions of the imaging operator have on reconstructed pixel or voxel values. Quantifying the reduction in this deterministic source of uncertainty when more attributes are measured for each detected particle is the subject of this work. Specifically, upper bounds on an error metric are derived to quantify the error introduced in the reconstruction by the presence of null functions, and these upper bounds are shown to be reduced when the number of attributes is increased. These bounds are illustrated with an example of a two-dimensional single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) system where the depth of interaction in the scintillation crystal is added to the attribute vector.