A Quantum Algorithm for Model-Independent Searches for New Physics

We propose a novel quantum technique to search for unmodeled anomalies in multidimensional binned collider data. We propose associating an Ising lattice spin site with each bin, with the Ising Hamiltonian suitably constructed from the observed data and a corresponding theoretical expectation. In order to capture spatially correlated anomalies in the data, we introduce spin-spin interactions between neighboring sites, as well as self-interactions. The ground state energy of the resulting Ising Hamiltonian can be used as a new test statistic, which can be computed either classically or via adiabatic quantum optimization. We demonstrate that our test statistic outperforms some of the most commonly used goodness-of-fit tests. The new approach greatly reduces the look-elsewhere effect by exploiting the typical differences between statistical noise and genuine new physics signals.