Statistical tools for a better optical model

Understand

Background: Modern statistical tools provide the ability to compare the information content of observables and provide a path to explore which experiments would be most useful to give insight into and constrain theoretical models.

• Purpose: In this work we study three such tools in the context of nuclear reactions with the goal of constraining the optical potential.
• Method: The three statistical tools examined are: i) the principal component analysis; ii) the sensitivity analysis based on derivatives; and iii) the Bayesian evidence.
• We first apply these tools to a toy-model case, comparing the form of the imaginary part of the optical potential.