Not only can smoothing XANES data attenuate sharp features, it can also shift them, since many XANES features, particularly in the “pre-edge” region, are significantly asymmetric about their peak. That can make analysis quite confusing, since, e.g., the size of the boxcar ends up affecting the position of the peak!

Best,

Scott Calvin

Lehman College of the City University of New York

On Jan 22, 2020, at 8:44 PM, Carlo Segre <segre@iit.edu> wrote:

I generally don't like to smooth XANES data since smoothing does tend to attenuate sharp features such as the ones which exist near the absorption edge.