On the analysis of deep inelastic neutron scattering experiments for light nuclei

We analyze different procedures for data processing in deep inelastic neutron scattering experiments focussing our attention on experiments performed on light nuclei. We first examine experiments in which the desired information is obtained from the observed peak areas in the particular case of mixtures of light and heavy water. In the second part we examine the procedure to obtain an effective temperature from the experimental peaks. As a consequence of the results emerging from both cases we trace the limits of validity of the convolution formalism usually employed. and propose a different treatment of the experimental data for this kind of measurements. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.