An Investigation of the Performance of the Unified Monte Carlo Method of Neutron Cross Section Data Evaluation

The Unified Monte Carlo method (UMC) has been suggested to avoid certain limitations and approximations inherent to the well-known Generalized Least Squares (GLS) method of nuclear data evaluation. This contribution reports on an investigation of the performance of the UMC method in comparison with the GLS method. This is accomplished by applying both methods to simple examples with few input values that were selected to explore various features of the evaluation process that impact upon the quality of an evaluation. Among the issues explored are: i) convergence of UMC results with the number of Monte Carlo histories and the ranges of sampled values; ii) a comparison of Monte Carlo sampling using the Metropolis scheme and a brute force approach; iii) the effects of large data discrepancies; iv) the effects of large data uncertainties; v) the effects of strong or weak model or experimental data correlations; and vi) the impact of ratio data and integral data. Comparisons are also made of the evaluated results for these examples when the input values are first transformed to comparable logarithmic values prior to performing the evaluation. Some general conclusions that are applicable to more realistic evaluation exercises are offered.