Universal algorithm for the analysis of charge distributions in segmented electrodes of gas detectors

A general algorithm to extract the center of gravity of charge distributions generated in a patterned electrode is presented. The results obtained analyzing the data produced by the gas focal plane detector of the MAGNEX spectrometer are discussed. The algorithm is characterized by an unprecedented efficiency and accuracy when dealing with data with small signal-to-noise ratio. A clear recovery of the smooth position distribution from the quantized one obtained with standard algorithms is observed. The optimized algorithm is also able to naturally mitigate the cross-talk phenomena that are quite strong in this kind of compact detectors.