Symmetry point of experimental data

Question

I have the experimental data of some measurement as a function of angle. Since this is an experimental data, I have the measurements at every 1.8 degree. From the physics, I do know that the data should be symmetric with respect to some angle. But we have some problems: (1) our measurements are not perfect. Due to measurement noise our data does not look perfectly symmetric (2) Since we are measuring the data at every 1.8 degree, we can certainly miss the symmetry angle.

Now my question is: Is there any mathematical or programming procedure to measure the most accurate symmetry point from this experimental data? From the data I can assume that the symmetry point might be within 3.6 degree to 5.4 degree, but I would like to estimate the point more precisely.

Thank you. Khalid

Answer 1

IMO you have two options: You can rent or purchase a lock-in amplifier or you can post process your data using a noise reduction algorithm such as Maximum Entropy.