Evaluation of accurate uncertainty of measurement in L subshell ionization cross-section

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of accurately evaluating uncertainties in L subshell ionization cross-section measurements, highlighting the complexities and proposing a weighted propagation method to improve comparison between experimental and theoretical data.

Contribution

The study introduces a simplified approach using weighted propagation of relative uncertainty to assess measurement uncertainties in L subshell ionization cross-sections.

Findings

Larger uncertainties are found in atomic parameters for L1 subshell.

Uncertainty evaluation is crucial for meaningful comparison between theory and experiment.

The method emphasizes the importance of proper uncertainty assessment in complex measurements.

Abstract

To have a better understanding of a physical process, a comparison of ex-perimental data with theoretical values is mandatory. The comparison ismeaningful if the uncertainty in the experiment is accounted well. However,it is seldom seen, especially for a complex phenomenon. We take a test casethrough L subshell ionization of atoms by particle impact. Experimentally,x-ray production cross-sections are measured, but ionization cross-sectionsare calculated theoretically. Furthermore, the uncertainty of the x-ray pro-duction cross-section is mainly statistics and detector-efficiency driven. Butionization cross-section involves many other factors because of the relation-ship between the production and ionization cross section, having wide uncer-tainty spectrum. Consequently, determining the measurement uncertainty inL subshell ionization cross-section is always difficult. We have studied thisissue in the simplest way, where the rule of weighted propagation of rela-tive uncertainty is utilised. We notice that larger uncertainties are involvedin atomic parameters relevant to L1(2s1/2) subshell than those associatedwith the other two L2(2p1/2) and L3(2p3/2) subshells. Hence, comparisonbetween theory and experiment would give higher emphasis onL2andL3subshell ionization cross sections. We believe this work aware us that theappropriate uncertainty evaluation is extremely important for providing theright judgment on the data.