A&A 387, 347-355 (2002)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20020289
1 - Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique, Université
de Liège, avenue de Cointe 5, 4000 Liège, Belgium
2 -
Astronomical Observatory of Kyiv University, Observatorna St. 3,
UA-04053 Kyiv, Ukraine
Received 13 November 2001 / Accepted 30 January 2002
Abstract
A general algorithm of slit spectra extraction for a system of
point-like sources (e.g. multiple lensed images of a quasar) has been
developed, assuming that the point-spread function (PSF) induced by the
measuring instrument and/or atmosphere and the positions of the spectra
relative to the CCD frame are unknown. The main idea of the algorithm is
to successively apply the maximum entropy method to each set of
parameters, such as the spectra, the PSF, and the spectra positions, in
order to iteratively improve their values. The algorithm uses all the
a priori knowledge about the spectra (e.g. flux positivity, flux ratios
between the components, astrometry, etc.) to compute the initial
parameter sets. The main features of the algorithm, its implementation,
as well as some important aspects of its practical use, are discussed in
detail. Two sets of simulated spectroscopic data have been built in
order to show the most characteristic properties of the algorithm and to
justify its aplication to the spectra extraction of the gravitational
lens system Q1009-0252 A & B (=LBQS1009-0252 A & B).
Further applications of the algorithm are suggested.
Key words: techniques: image processing - techniques: spectroscopic
It is well known that the observed image of a point-like source deviates from an ideal one because of atmospheric turbulence, diffraction, instrument aberrations, detector noise, etc. Moreover, sometimes we are forced to process data which, for some reason, are incomplete. For example, we may only know a rough estimate of the atmospheric seeing without detailed knowledge of the point-spread function (PSF) of our instrument and/or atmosphere.
Thus, whenever we deal with observational data, some restoration techniques are necessary in order to extract as much information as possible. To improve the reliability of such an extraction, it is important to supplement the observational data with prior knowledge about the image. Powerful examples of such a priori information are the flux positivity, the flux ratios between the various image components, the astrometric data, the full width at half maximum (FWHM) characterizing the seeing and so on.
The aim of this paper is to describe a new, sufficiently general algorithm of spectra extraction. The algorithm, which works even if the PSF and the spectra shapes/positions within the CCD frame are not well known, is based on the maximum entropy method (MEM). Rooted in information theory, the MEM has been successfully used in a variety of fields (for general references concerning its astronomical applications, see Narayan & Nityananda 1986). The main arguments justifying the choice of the MEM as a basic method are as follows: (i) it makes the least assumption about unknown information, (ii) structure that is not evident in the data is not introduced in the image, (iii) there is a possibility to express a priori information in terms of a default image rather than the properties of the algorithm itself (Cornwell & Evans 1985; Skilling & Bryan 1984; Skilling 1989).
In Sect. 2 we present some general remarks, introduce adequate notations, and formulate the main idea of the proposed algorithm for spectra extraction. Section 3 is devoted to a description of the standard MEM scheme with some helpful generalizations. Then in Sect. 4, we consider in detail the structure and the most important features of our algorithm with respect to the restoration of different parameter sets. Section 5 contains a description of simulated observational data and examples of extracted spectra. We also discuss several aspects regarding the practical use of the algorithm and justify a posterori the quality of spectra that have been extracted with our method from observations of the gravitational lens system Q1009-0252 A & B. Finally, Sect. 6 summarizes our conclusions.
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Figure 1: Typical sky-subtracted CCD observational data showing the overlapping slit spectra of two nearby point-like components. These spectra appear as two nearly horizontal strips. The CCD frame has dimensions 990 pxl along the horizontal (spectral) direction and 26 pxl along the vertical (spatial) one. For a better reproduction, the image has been compressed along the spectral direction. |
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Let us assume that we deal with standard, sky-subtracted, CCD
observational data of slit spectra of an astronomical object that
consists of several point-like components (see Fig. 1).
Typically, it may be a gravitationally lensed quasar or another system
of point sources. For convenience, we shall label the spectra with
the discrete index a (
), where
represents their total number.
Usual implementation of spectral observations supposes that the
direction of dispersion coincides with one of the two CCD frame axes.
Hereafter, to distinguish between these two axes, the indices and i refer to pixel coordinates along the spectral and spatial
directions of the CCD frame, respectively. Furthermore, we use the pixel
size as a natural length
unit within the CCD frame, changing to wavelength or angular scales if
required. In an ideal situation, the spectra should look like parallel
straight lines with
xa=const., where xa denotes the
position of the ath spectrum along the spatial direction. But in practice,
due to differential atmospheric refraction and/or instrumental
distortion, spectra deviate from a straight line. Thus, to perform a
correct extraction of spectra, it is necessary to know their actual
shape, i.e. the values
at every
.
Now, let
be the PSF characterizing the image blurring by the
observational instrument and atmosphere. The PSF weakly depends on
wavelength but, when extracting spectra, we nearly always can choose a
spectral range within which this dependence may be neglected, even if
the spectra have relative offsets in the spectral direction. We assume
that the PSF is not necessarily a symmetric function, but it is
normalized to unity,
Generally speaking, there are three sets of unknown
parameters: the spectra
,
the set of the PSF values
,
and the spectra positions
.
The main idea of the proposed method is to successively apply the MEM
to each set of parameters in order to iteratively improve their values.
To implement this idea, we follow, with some generalizations,
the simple maximum entropy deconvolution algorithm proposed by Cornwell &
Evans (1985), hereafter C&E (see also Steinbach 1996).
For completeness, let us briefly describe the main features of this
algorithm and our generalizations of it. The essence of the algorithm is
directly bound to the concept of relative entropy.
Suppose that we are to reconstruct some object which is not necessarily
an image but which is represented by several discrete sets of
uniform positive parameters, like the three sets previously
discussed. Following our main idea, consider separately one of the sets,
say
,
assuming all the others are known.
For convenience, we shall treat this set as a vector
in
the M-dimensional space. Suppose also that a priori knowledge about
the object can be expressed in the form of the vector
of
the same dimension. The relative entropy
If there are some observational data, they will pull the reconstructed object away from the a priori one. It can be shown that the MEM selects a single object from a variety of objects consistent with the data (for a theoretical foundation of the MEM and a discussion of the corresponding justifications from the information theory, see the papers mentioned above and the references therein).
The chi-square statistic is usually used to describe the discrepancies
between the observed and the reconstructed data sets. To write the function in our case, note that the contribution of each spectrum to the
flux in the pixel
is given by Eq. (3).
Denoting the observed flux by
and the corresponding standard
deviation by
,
we can write the following expression for
the
:
The optimization problem then consists of finding a vector such that the gradient of Q, i.e. the vector
whose
components are equal to
,
is zero.
Following C&E, we use the Newton-Raphson
iterative optimization of the objective function (6) with
automatic adjustment of the Lagrange multipliers
and
at
every step of iteration. The algorithm starts with
and
.
The step to the next trial vector
is then
given by
The inverse matrix
It should be stressed that requirement (8) cannot itself serve
as a criterion to stop the iterations, since we are interested in
the best fit of the observational data. Therefore, we demand that,
along with (8), at least one of the following two
conditions is satisfied as well:
At any stage of iteration, the required changes in the Lagrange multipliers
and
are defined by (see C&E)
Let S, F, and X denote symbolically the implementations of the MEM
to process the spectra, the PSF, and the spectra positions,
respectively. Then the general scheme of our algorithm may be displayed as
a sequence of MEM steps:
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Now, let us consider the features of each of the three main steps of the algorithm.
At this step, the components of the vector
are the spectra
.
We use the general form of the objective function (6) and choose total flux conservation as the second
constraint that implies the following form for the function G:
A choice of initial values for
depends on our prior knowledge
about the observed object. Suppose that we know the relative fluxes
qa of its components, which are normalized by
.
Then,
at a specified CCD row
,
we have
.
Adding the fluxes
[cf. Eqs. (3) and (5)] from all pixels of
this row and using again the normalization
of the PSF, we obtain
.
This implies
the helpful expression for the start values of
:
There are no special problems implementing this step of the algorithm.
Note only that to protect against
becoming negative,
especially at
the first few iterations, clipping of possible non-positive values
is used (see C&E).
The discrete set of the PSF values (2) should now be considered
as the vector .
The choice of the number of sampling points
and of the sampling interval
depends on the adopted, default PSF profile
(Gaussian,
Moffat's, etc.) and on the observational estimate of the FWHM, including
the atmospheric seeing.
We take the Gaussian profile with observed FWHM as the a priori PSF,
and
choose the sampling interval
using the sampling theorem (see,
for example, Press et al. 1997).
Suppose that the PSF
is approximately bandwidth limited
in the Fourier domain. This hypothesis is rather general and valid,
e.g., for a Gaussian PSF because its Fourier image is also a Gaussian,
and for a Moffat PSF (see Moffat 1969) whose Fourier
transform decreases exponentially at large frequencies. We determine
from the condition that, for a small given value
,
the Fourier component of the PSF at the Nyquist frequency
is
times as large as the one at the zero frequency.
For the Gaussian PSF and
,
this condition gives
,
which is used by us for the
computation of the sampling interval. Note that owing to some deviation of
the spectra from a straight line, it is possible to obtain a correct
approximation for the PSF, even if
is less than the pixel size.
On the other hand, in order not to lose information,
should not be
larger than the pixel size, i.e. than unity. Of course, if
,
a correct restoration of the PSF is impossible
due to sampling limitations. Some trial method should then be used.
The half number of the PSF points
is chosen from the
condition that the PSF values at the ends of the interval
are small,
about 10-3 the central value. For large absolute values of the
argument, we use continuously differentiable matching of the numerical
profile with Gaussian ones. A minimum value of
is
taken to be 5.
It is convenient to introduce the new variables ,
with the default
values
,
defined as
To interpolate the numerical PSF profile, we use the approximation
which follows from the sampling theorem. In our notations, we thus have
Again, we optimize the relative entropy under the constraints that the
resulting PSF is consistent with the observed data (9) and
obeys the normalization condition (1). The corresponding
function G is obtained by approximation of the integral in (1) with the sum of sampled PSF values:
Let us suppose that detailed astrometric information is available for a
given object and that it is possible to compute the relative spectra
positions
along the spatial direction. Suppose also that the
spectra have no relative offset, or just a small one, along the dispersion.
Then their positions in each CCD row
are given by
Because
are all defined within a constant, it is useful
to choose this constant such that
,
where qaare the relative fluxes of the components.
refers then to
the centre of brightness, and its initial value
can easily
be estimated as a flux-weighted average of the pixel number i along the
spatial direction, i.e. across the dispersion:
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Note that if the astrometric data on an observed object are not reliable
enough, it is possible to generalize this step of the algorithm,
considering the positions
as unknown variables and using
the MEM strategy similar to that for spectra processing.
These are the main features of the three steps followed in the proposed
algorithm. As a rule, it converges rather quickly owing to a careful
choice of the initial values. We restrict the maximum number of
iterations at every step to be 10 in order to prevent big accidental
deviations of the fitted parameters from their true values. Also, as the
decreases, we gradually diminish the values of
and
in (8) and (9) to
prevent the possibility of overfitting. Note that after stopping the
iterations, it is necessary to renormalize both the spectra and the PSF,
because condition (1) remains valid only approximately
during the iterations whereas the
function is invariant under
normalizing transformations
,
with some positive parameter k whose value is usually
near unity.
In conclusion of this section, let us summarize the main elements of our algorithm (cf. C&E):
A computer program that implements the concepts presented in the previous sections was written in the C language. At first, all the different segments as well as the whole program were carefully tested and continuously improved, using simulated data without and with noise. Then the program was successfully applied to observations of the gravitationally lensed quasar Q1009-0252 A & B (Claeskens et al. 2001, hereafter CKLSS).
The choice of spectra for simulations is not as simple as it may seem
at first sight. It is always possible and easy to select examples that
exclusively show either advantages or disadvantages of an algorithm. As
a reasonable compromise in this section, we restrict our consideration to
only processing two sets of artificial data in order to reveal most of
the program features as well as to justify the correctness of the
extracted spectra for Q1009-0252 A & B (see CKLSS). The number of
overlapping spectra
is taken to be 2.
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Figure 2: Spectra that have been used for the CCD data simulations. From top to bottom: bright component (A), faint component (versions B1 and B2), night sky (S). See text for details. |
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The basic spectra which have been used for the CCD data simulations are presented in Fig. 2, where and henceforth all spectral fluxes are expressed in analog-to-digital units (ADU). In this figure, plot A represents the spectrum of the bright component; for this purpose we have chosen a slightly smoothed spectrum of Q1009-0252 A as published in CKLSS. Plots B1 and B2 display two different versions of the spectrum of the faint component. Spectrum B1 is completely artificial and is approximately 0.26 as bright as that of A. Spectrum B2 is obtained from spectrum A by multiplying by 0.1 and including some reddening like that observed for the B component of Q1009-0252 (CKLSS). Finally, plot Srepresents a background spectrum of the night sky. Note that in spite of their specific differences, all the spectra nearly show the same global shape due to the wavelength dependence of the CCD quantum efficiency combined with the transmission of the instrument and of the atmosphere. Spanning a very wide range in flux, these spectra allow us to show how our algorithm works for different values of the S/N.
As previously mentioned, we consider two sets of artificial spectra, namely
combinations A+B1 (model #1) and A+B2 (model #2), each being supplied
with the night sky background S, and we treat the (angular) separation
between the spectra as a free parameter. We assume, for simplicity, that
the effects due to differential atmospheric refraction and/or instrumental
distortion are linear as a function of
so that the spectra may be
approximated by straight lines, slightly inclined with respect to the
spectral direction of the CCD frame.
Following the choice of input spectra, we must now select the PSF, add noise and subtract the sky background. Sky subtraction is a common procedure and does not require special comments. As to the choice of the PSF profile, we adopt a simple Gaussian PSF that is sampled over a pixel size. Of course we could choose more complex PSFs, say non-symmetrical ones, but this would only introduce unnecessary complications to our main considerations. Due to the same reason, we assume that the parameters of the PSF neither depend on wavelength nor on position within the CCD frame. For all the considered simulations, we adopt a FWHM of 2.5 pxl, a rather typical value for ground-based spectroscopic observations.
In order to add noise to our artificial spectra, it should be noted
that, following standard reduction of CCD data (including sky subtraction),
one usually deals with two kinds of noise: the Poisson distributed photon
noise due to the quantum nature of light and the normally distributed
readout noise mainly arising from the on-chip preamplifier. Let us
denote the gain factor of the CCD by g and consider the total signal
I in a given pixel due to both the spectra and the sky. The corresponding
number of photoelectrons
collected by this pixel is given by
.
Since
,
like the number of photons, also obeys the Poisson
distribution, its observed value is approximately equal to the Poisson's mean.
Now, if we introduce two random variables, a Poisson
distributed
with mean m and a normally distributed
with zero mean and unit variance, then the noise-added
signal in the considered pixel can be written in the form:
Parameter | Model #1 and #2 |
Spectrum 1 (bright) | A |
Spectrum 2 (faint) | B1 and B2 |
Flux ratio | 0.26 and 0.10 |
Sky background | S |
PSF profile | pixel averaged Gaussian |
Seeing ( FWHM) | 2.5 pxl |
Spectral scale | 4 Å/pxl |
Image size |
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CCD gain | 2
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CCD readout noise | 4 ADU |
Spectra separation | free parameter |
As an illustration, Fig. 3 shows a mosaic of simulated spectral
data within model #1 for separations between the spectra of 2 pxl
(left panel) and 4 pxl (right panel). Both these panels display the spectra
before and after sky subtraction as well as the associated standard deviations
needed for the chi-square test and computed according to Eq. (13).
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Figure 3:
Two examples of simulated spectral data in the case of model #1.
As in Fig. 1, the size of each single image is
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Before proceeding any further, let us make some general remarks regarding the use of the program. First of all note that the quality of spectra restoration scales with the number of useful constraints on the parameters (cf. known relative separation between the spectra, etc.). Fortunately, in our case we can reduce the number of parameter sets from three to two and thereby improve the accuracy of extraction, using a two-stage processing. This is suggested by the fact that a priori the spectra should look smooth. In the first stage, we process the observational data with our general algorithm to obtain rough values for the spectra, the PSF and the spectra positions. A typical behaviour of the spectra positions after such an initial processing is shown in Fig. 4 for model #1 with a known separation of 1.5 pxl between the spectra. Comparison between Fig. 2 and Fig. 4 shows that the noise degradation affecting the positions is evidently related to the noise present in the simulated spectra: high noise corresponds to low S/N and vice versa. In spite of noise, a reliable estimate of the spectra positions and their shapes is easily obtained. Thus, it is quite reasonable to apply any apropriate smoothing procedure (e.g. least-squares fitting, smoothing filters, etc.) in order to get reliable spectra positions. After this, we may pass to the second stage of data processing in which only the spectra and the PSF are considered to be unknown.
Another useful technique is just to repeat the data processing after
suitable smoothing of the previously obtained spectra. The process of
spectra extraction is regarded as complete if no more change in
the spectra is seen.
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Figure 4: An example of the spectra positions after the first processing (model #1, spectra separation of 1.5 pxl). In spite of noise, a reliable estimate of the spectra positions is easily obtained. |
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It is important to emphasize that whenever we carry out the extraction procedure, the (smoothed) parameters which were derived at the previous processing stage serve as the initial (default) parameters to the next one (cf. Sects. 3 and 4).
Yet another remark concerns the PSF. It turns out that in all considered cases, its profile is perfectly restored. In fact, this is achieved because of using a uniform profile all across the spectral range. If the PSF is wavelength dependent or, more generally, varies with the position within the CCD frame, then we would only get its average shape with the global processing. Analysis of the residuals usually provides a good indication for such a dependence. Then a possible way out is to divide the whole spectral range into several parts with the application of our strategy to each part separately. By the way, it is the residual map that allows, under certain practice, to reveal plausible reasons for parameter discrepancies. Note however that the MEM produces partially correlated residuals so that it is impossible to determine their distribution which should be completely homogeneous (see Narayan & Nityananda 1986 and references therein).
Our algorithm is also very reliable regarding flux conservation. For all the applications, a relative error smaller than 0.5% has been reached for the total flux.
The main computational cost in running our program comes from the matrix
inversions and calculation of the
function and its derivatives.
Run time per single processing mainly depends on the flux ratio between
the spectra, on the spectra separation, on the FWHM of the PSF, and
typically varies from 1 to 5 min (Pentium III, 450 MHz).
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Figure 5: Model #1: original (thick line) and extracted (thin line) spectra of the bright component A for a separation of 0.5 pxl between A and B1. |
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Let us now have a close look at the results obtained for the spectra extraction. As previously mentioned, we have stuck in all cases to the following scheme: (i) processing with three unknown parameter sets, (ii) smoothing and fixing the spectra positions, (iii) processing with two sets of unknowns, (iv) smoothing the spectra, and (v) one more processing with two sets of unknowns. We have carried out a large number of data simulations for which we have varied the spectra separation in the [0.5 pxl-4 pxl] range with a step of 0.5 pxl.
First we consider the spectra that have been extracted from the data based on model #1 (see Fig. 2 and Table 1) for which the original spectra have a moderate flux ratio. In Fig. 5 we compare the original and the extracted spectrum of the bright component A for the case of a 0.5 pxl separation between A and B1. In spite of such a small separation, the extracted spectrum is in good agreement with the original one except for some minor differences. It is clear that as the separation increases, the extraction quality improves, especially regarding the faint component. Therefore, we focus our attention on the spectrum of the faint component B1.
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Figure 6: Model #1: extracted spectra of the faint component B1 (thin lines) for several separations between A and B1: a) 0.5 pxl, b) 1.5 pxl, c) 2.5 pxl, d) 3.5 pxl. For comparison, the thick lines represent the original spectrum. |
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Figure 6 presents a sequence of extracted spectra for this
component as a function of the separation between A and B1. As one
can see, at small separation (plot a), the B1 spectrum is rather noisy,
with evident pollution from peaks present in spectrum A because of
the strong overlap between the two spectra (cf. Fig. 5).
At larger separations (b, c, and d), the spectrum becomes less and
less noisy due to a significant decrease of pollution from the bright
component. Note however that even in the case of a separation that exceeds
the adopted FWHM (plot d), there remain weak bursts of noise at
and
which are apparently due to the
corresponding peaks present in spectrum A.
From this example we conclude that, using the algorithm, one should remain very careful in deciding which spectral details are spurious and which ones are genuine. As it was already mentioned, a good protection against errors and wrong data interpretation is a careful analysis of the residual map. Thus, if the spectra are recognized to be incorrect, the extraction procedure should be repeated. With this in mind, one should make adequate changes beforehand in the initial (default) values of the parameters (for example, by slightly modifying the spectra and/or smoothing them, setting another value for the FWHM of the PSF, etc.) In some cases, this strategy leads to much better results.
Now we turn to model #2 which is based on two similar spectra for A and B2, the latter one being slightly reddened. This corresponds to a quite typical situation for multiply imaged quasars. Although gravitational lensing is achromatic, implying that under ideal conditions, the spectra of several images of the same quasar should look exactly the same, they turn out, in practice, to be distinct from each other due to microlensing, extinction effects, intrinsic variability of the quasar combined with expected time delays, etc. (for general references, see Kayser et al. 1986; Refsdal & Surdej 1994; Narayan & Bartelmann 1996; Jean & Surdej 1998). Nevertheless, the spectra usually retain their similarity, which provides a very important constituent of our prior knowledge, making easier an application of the algorithm. Indeed, for such an object, we may always start the data processing with identical spectra for the lensed images, as described in Sect. 4.
The basic spectra A and B2 are characterized by a large flux ratio.
Again, as in the previous case, we shall only consider the extracted spectra
of the faint component. Inspection of Fig. 7, which is somewhat
similar to Fig. 6, shows how the noise decreases with the
increasing separation between A and B2. Consequently, more and more
features from the original spectrum become recognizable in the extracted
one. Reddening of the continuum is very well reproduced in all cases, even at
small separation, for which the noise level is quite high.
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Figure 7: Model #2: extracted spectra of the faint component B2 (thin lines) for several separations between A and B2: a) 0.5 pxl, b) 1.5 pxl, c) 2.5 pxl, d) 3.5 pxl. The original spectrum is displayed with a thick line. |
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Model #2 as well as the parameters of the CCD have been chosen in such a way that plot d in Fig. 7, corresponding to a separation of 3.5 pxl, looks very much like the extracted spectrum of component B for the gravitationally lensed quasar Q1009-0252 (CKLSS). As we see, a very good agreement is reached between the simulated and extracted spectra. One additional argument in favour of the efficiency of the described MEM algorithm is that the extracted spectra of Q1009-0252 A & B that were presented in CKLSS were also found to be in very good agreement with those obtained using a totally independent and more empirical extraction method (Surdej et al. 1993). Thus, we conclude that, at least in this particular case, our algorithm leads to very reliable results.
We have described a MEM-based algorithm for optimal extraction of overlapping slit spectra. The algorithm uses all prior knowledge on observational data and may successfully work, even if the PSF and the spectra positions relative to the CCD frame are unknown. Testing and debugging the corresponding program have clearly shown that our algorithm is very reliable, robust and works rather well for a large range of input parameters. Examples that have been considered in the previous section confirm this conclusion.
However, it should be noted that the use of our algorithm does not completely exclude possible ambiguities, especially in some extreme cases. As we repeatedly mentioned above, the simplest and the most reliable method to protect against errors in spectra decomposition consists of a careful analysis of the residuals. But this method does not work, for example, if we deal with two very close overlapping spectra, one of which is very faint with respect to the other. In such a case, even the two-stage technique proposed in Sect. 5 may lead to an uncertain result. Another danger is to attribute particularly correlated residuals to the MEM itself rather than to errors of decomposition. This ambiguity can be eliminated by demanding that the obtained spectra are consistent with the observed data not only globally, in the statistical sense, but also locally.
Of course, we fully realize that more applications of the proposed algorithm should be carried out and we hope to pursue such applications in the near future, especially in cases of incomplete observational data. Namely, we intend to use our algorithm to process additional observations of gravitational lens systems taken in the framework of the Gravitational Lensing ESO key program. In parallel, corresponding and adequate spectra simulations will enable us to quantify the reliability of the algorithm as well as to estimate the flux errors of the extracted spectra, following a similar approach to that described in the present work.
Acknowledgements
One of us (S. Kh.) would like to thank the Belgian OSTC for the research fellowship granted to him within the programme of scientific and technical cooperation with Central & Eastern Europe. Our research was supported in part by PRODEX (Gravitational lens studies with HST), by contract P4/05 Pôle d'attraction interuniversitaire (OSTC, Belgium) and by the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (Belgium).