Ranking and validation of spallation models for isotopic production cross sections of heavy residua

The production cross sections of isotopically identified residual nuclei of spallation reactions induced by ¹³⁶Xe projectiles at 500 AMeV on hydrogen target were analyzed in a two-step model. The first stage of the reaction was described by the INCL4.6 model of an intranuclear cascade of nucleon-nucleon and pion-nucleon collisions whereas the second stage was analyzed by means of four different models; ABLA07, GEM2, GEMINI++ and SMM. The quality of the data description was judged quantitatively using two statistical deviation factors; the H-factor and the M-factor. It was found that the present analysis leads to a different ranking of models as compared to that obtained from the qualitative inspection of the data reproduction. The disagreement was caused by sensitivity of the deviation factors to large statistical errors present in some of the data. A new deviation factor, the A factor, was proposed, that is not sensitive to the statistical errors of the cross sections. The quantitative ranking of models performed using the A-factor agreed well with the qualitative analysis of the data. It was concluded that using the deviation factors weighted by statistical errors may lead to erroneous conclusions in the case when the data cover a large range of values. The quality of data reproduction by the theoretical models is discussed. Some systematic deviations of the theoretical predictions from the experimental results are observed. (orig.)