Processing of XFEL Data

Abstract

The introduction of the X-ray laser to crystallography, and its impact on the types of crystallographic experiments being performed as described in the previous chapter, has meant that new data processing strategies had to be found. While some XFEL crystallography experiments approach the conventional methods quite closely, even those are not without special considerations relating to data processing. Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) introduces several additional problems, many of which have been solved recently, and there has been great progress towards resolving the remaining ones. Recent developments into the use of continuous scattering between the Bragg peaks will need even greater changes to the conventional data processing methods. This chapter describes the special characteristics of XFEL data and introduces the range of processing methods which are currently under development.

Keywords: Data processing; Indexing; Integration; Merging; Scaling; Serial femtosecond crystallography; XFEL.