Benford's Law in Nuclear Structure Physics

Abstract

We investigate Benford's law based on the 2003 version of atomic mass evaluation. It is demonstrated that the first non-zero digit distribution functions for a number of experimental quantities are in reasonable agreement with those predicted by Benford's law. The data that we investigate here include 3001 sets of Sp, 3060 sets of Sn, 2943 sets of two-neutron separation energies S2n, 2826 sets of two-proton separation energies S2p, 1643 sets of β+-decay energies Q(β+), 1243 sets of β−-decay energies Q(β−), 2595 sets of double β-decay energies Q(ββ−), and 2711 sets of energies in electron-capture proton processes Q(∊p). The first non-zero digits of these data favor the smaller ones in a logarithmic pattern.