Eur. Phys. J. A (2019) 55: 141
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2019-12826-y

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Ratio method for estimating uncertainty in calculated gamma cascades

¹ Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
² Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
³ Los Alamos National Laboratory, 87545, Los Alamos, NM, USA

^* e-mail: amanda_lewis@berkeley.edu

Received: 14 May 2019
Accepted: 7 July 2019
Published online: 29 August 2019

Abstract

The assessment of uncertainty on deduced quantities obtained through both measurement and modeling must include contributions from both components. There are several methods to estimate the uncertainty due to modeling, such as the parametric uncertainty and that stemming from model bias. However, in the case where experimental data exists for partial cross sections, such as discrete gammas emitted in the de-excitation of the product nucleus following the reaction, the discrepancy between the measured and modeled gamma cascades provides more information and allows for uncertainty estimation that can account for all types of model and data uncertainty. This work presents a method for estimating that uncertainty, using ratios of gammas to get a measure of the accuracy of different parts of the modeled gamma cascade. The gamma with the lowest intensity uncertainty is shown to be the best for determining the channel cross section with realistic uncertainties, indicating that it should be used rather than the most intense gamma or a sum of gammas. This method provides both a simple procedure for calculating realistic uncertainties and identifies the best gamma for use in converting a set of measured partial gamma cross sections to the deduced total channel cross section.