Overview of spectral unfolding techniques and uncertainty estimation

The first part of this article provides a concise survey of some of the mathematical methods that have been proposed for neutron spectrum unfolding. The aim is to give a pedagogical introduction to the subject without going into a detailed discussion of technical issues. The second part of this article concerns the evaluation of uncertainties. Spectra derived using unfolding techniques (and any quantities computed from these spectra; e.g., fluences and doses) will be subject to uncertainties and it is important to provide estimates of these uncertainties. This is not straightforward, due in part to the special role played by the prior information. It is shown that an approach using Bayesian parameter estimation can overcome these difficulties.