Methods for a quantitative evaluation of odd-even staggering effects
Abstract
Odd-even effects, also known as "staggering" effects, are a common feature observed in the yield distributions of fragments produced in different types of nuclear reactions. We review old methods, and we propose new ones, for a quantitative estimation of these effects as a function of proton or neutron number of the reaction products. All methods are compared on the basis of Monte Carlo simulations. We find that some are not well suited for the task, the most reliable ones being those based either on a non-linear fit with a properly oscillating function or on a third (or fourth) finite difference approach. In any case, high statistic is of paramount importance to avoid that spurious structures appear just because of statistical fluctuations in the data and of strong correlations among the yields of neighboring fragments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1506.02587,
title = {Methods for a quantitative evaluation of odd-even staggering effects},
author = {Alessandro Olmi and Silvia Piantelli},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.02587},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
16 pages, 9 figures - Revised version, mainly with an expanded sect. 2 about smoothing methods (three more methods are presented and an appendix on relevant aspects of the finite-differences formalism is added); results are shown also for the simulations with the three additional methods. Some more references are added. Conclusions are unchanged