Experimental Nuclear Reaction Data Uncertainties: Basic Concepts and Documentation

This paper has been written to provide experimental nuclear data researchers and data compilers with practical guidance on dealing with experimental nuclear reaction data uncertainties. It outlines some of the properties of random variables as well as principles of data uncertainty estimation, and illustrates them by means of simple examples which are relevant to the field of nuclear data. Emphasis is placed on the importance of generating mathematical models (or algorithms) that can adequately represent individual experiments for the purpose of estimating uncertainties in their results. Several types of uncertainties typically encountered in nuclear data experiments are discussed. The requirements and procedures for reporting information on measurement uncertainties for neutron reaction data, so that they will be useful in practical applications, are addressed. Consideration is given to the challenges and opportunities offered by reports, conference proceedings, journal articles, and computer libraries as vehicles for reporting and documenting numerical experimental data. Finally, contemporary formats used to compile reported experimental covariance data in the widely used library EXFOR are discussed, and several samples of EXFOR files are presented to demonstrate their use.