TASMAN-2.2 - Statistical software for TALYS: Uncertainties, sensitivities and optimization

a PhD in the Natural Sciences on Multi-step direct reactions at the Univ. of Groningen, and a Professorship at the Univ. of Uppsala on theoretical nuclear reactions.Arjan is currently Head of the Nuclear Data Section at the IAEA in Vienna.Before that, he has worked at ECN/NRG Petten, the Netherlands, on nuclear reaction data for science and technology, and as guest scientist at CEA/Bruyères-le-Châtel and Los Alamos National Laboratory on the development and computational implementation of nuclear reaction models.He has led several students to PhD degrees, has coordinated and chaired various international nuclear data projects such as the OECD/NEA JEFF and WPEC projects, and has advised governments and international organisations on nuclear research and development.Among his scientific accomplishments are innovations in nuclear reaction physics, especially for the optical model and pre-equilibrium reactions, and initiating the '3 T's': the TALYS nuclear model code, Total Monte Carlo uncertainty propagation and the TENDL nuclear data library.He has been awarded the Oppenheimer Coin from Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by Uppsala University.As of 2025, his h-index is 62 with more than 26 000 citations.Although Arjan is currently in a managerial role, he aims to keep his scientific creativity alive by maintaining and extending TALYS plus all software that emerges from that.Pleas from his friends to also spend time on other things are sometimes honoured. PrefaceTASMAN is a software package for statistical operations on the nuclear model code TALYS and other related software.TASMAN generates random distributions of input parameters for the TALYS code, then runs TALYS for each random input file, and collects the calculated results to obtain probability distributions of basically all output quantities of TALYS.From this, statistical information such as covariance matrices for parameters and cross sections can be constructed.Also sensitivity profiles can be obtained.With the same technique, automatic optimization ("parameter search") of the TALYS results to experimental data is possible, so the best possible fit to experiment can be obtained.For all this, the entire EXFOR database, and several ENDF data libraries for that matter, are linked to TASMAN.The idea to make TASMAN was born in 2004, when I was using the TALYS and TEFAL codes for the production of nuclear data libraries.What was missing was a method to assign uncertainties to our model-calculated results, and the associated absence of covariance data in the data libraries.Also, manual fitting of TALYS results to experimental data is sometimes tedious, calling for a more automated optimization method.For both purposes, input generation, reading and subsequent processing of many TALYS output files is required, and this is implemented in TASMAN.At certain moments in time, a well-defined version of TASMAN is frozen and subjected to extensive verification and validation procedures.You are now reading the manual of version 2.2. License, contact and referenceAs mentioned on the first page and in the source code, TASMAN falls in the category of MIT License software.In addition to the MIT terms I have a request:• When TASMAN is used for your reports, publications, etc., please make a proper reference to the code.