From flatness to steepness: Updating TALYS covariances with experimental information

This paper presents a practical solution to merge information from experimental measurements and theoretical calculations using Monte Carlo sampling. Parallel to the sampling of theoretical parameters to produce random cross sections, one can also sample from the experimental data and combine both sources of information, leading to the concept of “Symmetric Monte Carlo” (or SMC). The approach is first detailed with a few simple examples and a real case, taking into account more than 600 measurements, is presented for 56Fe.