Data mining the EXFOR database using network theory

Abstract

The EXFOR database contains the largest collection of experimental nuclear reaction data available as well as the data's bibliographic information and experimental details. We created an undirected graph from the EXFOR datasets with graph nodes representing single observables and graph links representing the various types of connections between these observables. This graph is an abstract representation of the connections in EXFOR, similar to graphs of social networks, authorship networks, etc. By analyzing this abstract graph, we are able to address very specific questions such as 1) what observables are being used as reference measurements by the experimental nuclear science community? 2) are these observables given the attention needed by various nuclear data evaluation projects? 3) are there classes of observables that are not connected to these reference measurements? In addressing these questions, we propose several (mostly cross section) observables that should be evaluated and made into reaction reference standards.