Least-squares adjustment of a 'known' neutron spectrum: The importance of the covariance matrix of the input spectrum

Based on the responses of 25 different neutron activation detectors, the neutron spectrum of Cf-252 hs been adjusted with least-squares methods. For a fixed input neutron spectrum, the covariance matrix of this spectrum has been systematically varied to investigate the influence of this matrix on the final result. The investigation showed that the adjusted neutron spectrum is rather sensitive to the structure of the covariance matrix for the input spectrum. (author)