Scientific Reports:
H. Leeb, M. Pigni:
"Basic Statistics and Consistent Covariances for Nuclear Data Files (ATI-NDC-2005-03)";
Report for Atominstitut der Österr. Universitäten, Nuclear Data Communication;
2005.
English abstract:
We revisit the basic concepts of probability theory and focus on the application of Bayes theorem to nuclear data evaluation. Starting from the concept of complete ignorance we develop a well defined procedure for the construction of a reliable prior for nuclear data evaluation. This prior is solely based on the specific nuclear models and can also be applied at higher energies where experimental data are scarce. The feasibility of the procedure is demonstrated in a schematic example for a phenomenological optical potential.