Published 2014
NDS Staff Publication
Evaluation of the covariance matrix of estimated resonance parameters
- 1. Nuclear Data Section, IAEA
Description
In the resonance region nuclear resonance parameters are mostly obtained by a least square
adjustment of a model to experimental data. Derived parameters can be mutually correlated through
the adjustment procedure as well as through common experimental or model uncertainties. In this
contribution we investigate four different methods to propagate the additional covariance caused by
experimental or model uncertainties into the evaluation of the covariance matrix of the estimated
parameters: (1) including the additional covariance into the experimental covariance matrix based
on calculated or theoretical estimates of the data; (2) including the uncertainty affected parameter
in the adjustment procedure; (3) evaluation of the full covariance matrix by Monte Carlo sampling
of the common parameter; and (4) retroactively including the additional covariance by using the
marginalization procedure of Habert et al.