anomalous_signal is a tool for estimating the anomalous signal in a SAD experiment and for predicting whether this signal is sufficient to solve the structure. This tool normally is used in combination with plan_sad_experiment (planning the experiment) and scale_and_merge (scaling the unmerged data and also obtaining two half-datasets).
anomalous_signal provides a summary of the skew, measurement error, and half-dataset correlations in your dataset and the estimated anomalous signal, probability of solving the structure and estimated figure of merit of phasing. Here is an example:
-------------------Summary of signal in this dataset ------------------------ Shell CCano Nrefl Nrefl Resolution Esqr I/sigI half anom half 48.2- 6.0 0.09 33.09 0.85 2090 2032 6.0- 5.5 0.34 23.31 0.53 667 659 5.5- 5.0 0.34 22.84 0.49 956 947 5.0- 4.5 0.28 29.23 0.38 1468 1447 4.5- 4.0 0.42 24.00 0.16 2305 2276 4.0- 3.5 0.57 14.02 0.05 3832 3751 3.5- 3.0 0.84 5.91 0.01 6869 6494 3.0- 2.9 1.52 2.39 0.00 2035 1734 Cumulative ----------------------Data quality----------------- Best guess of expected results of finding sites ------ and phasing-------- CCano Nrefl P(Substr) Resolution Skew Esqr half anom CC* Signal +/- (%) FOM* +/- 48.2- 6.0 0.03 0.08 0.85 2090 0.71 6.3 0.4 23 0.3 0.1 48.2- 5.5 0.02 0.10 0.82 2757 0.76 7.8 0.3 40 0.3 0.1 48.2- 5.0 0.01 0.12 0.78 3713 0.70 8.3 0.6 47 0.3 0.1 48.2- 4.5 0.03 0.14 0.72 5181 0.68 9.5 0.7 61 0.3 0.1 48.2- 4.0 0.03 0.17 0.62 7486 0.72 12.1 0.6 76 0.4 0.0 48.2- 3.5 0.02 0.25 0.43 11318 0.66 13.6 1.4 83 0.4 0.0 48.2- 3.0 0.00 0.47 0.24 18187 0.48 12.7 2.0 79 0.3 0.1 48.2- 2.9 0.00 0.59 0.22 20222 0.42 11.8 1.7 74 0.3 0.1 Notes: Skew is skew of origin-removed anomalous difference Patterson Esqr is the squared ratio of sigmas to differences:<SigAno**2>/<Dano**2> I/sigI is the mean value of (Ihkl/sigIhkl) CCano half is the correlation between half-dataset anomalous differences Nrefl half is the number of anomalous differences in both half-datasets Nrefl anom is the number of anomalous differences in the entire dataset CC* is estimate of anomalous correlation to ideal data Signal +/- sigma is estimate of anomalous signal (peak height at coordinates of anomalously-scattering atoms in difference Fourier phased with model phases.) Note that the anomalous signal increases with the square root of the number of reflections and decreases with the square root of the number of sites. P(Substr) is estimate of probability that the sub-structure can be found with LLG-based HySS and this data. FOM* +/- sigma is estimate of phasing FOM if sub-structure is solved
anomalous_signal assumes that your crystal is similar to others that have been solved. If your crystal has serious decay or other factors that reduce signal to noise, the estimates provided by plan_sad_experiment may be too optimistic.