Blind unblinding procedure for the PADME X17 data sample
Abstract
The PADME experiment at the Frascati DANE LINAC has performed a search for the hypothetical X17 particle, with a mass of around 17 MeV, by scanning the energy of a positron beam striking a fixed target. The X17 should be produced from the resulting annihilation. Since the expected mass of this particle is only roughly known, data sidebands cannot be clearly defined. Furthermore, the need to keep the analysis blind to potentially sizable signal contributions prevents a clear assessment even of the quality of the data sample in this search. In light of these challenges, this paper presents an innovative strategy adopted by the PADME Collaboration to perform data quality checks without disclosing the X17 sample. Moreover, the procedure designed to eventually unblind the data is described, together with the statistical approach adopted to extract the limits on the coupling between the X17 and the Standard Model.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.05650,
title = {Blind unblinding procedure for the PADME X17 data sample},
author = {Susanna Bertelli and Fabio Bossi and Riccardo De Sangro and Claudio Di Giulio and Elisa Di Meco and Danilo Domenici and Giuseppe Finocchiaro and Luca Gennaro Foggetta and Marco Garattini and Paola Gianotti and Marco Mancini and Ivano Sarra and Tommaso Spadaro and Eleuterio Spiriti and Elisabetta Vilucchi and Venelin Kozhuharov and Kalina Dimitrova and Simeon Ivanov and Svetoslav Ivanov and Radoslav Simeonov and Fabio Ferrarotto and Emanuele Leonardi and Paolo Valente and Alessandro Variola and Elizabeth Long and Giovanni Organtini and Mauro Raggi and Andre Frankenthal and Fernando Arias-Aragón and Luc Darmé and Giovanni Grilli di Cortona and Enrico Nardi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.05650},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
14 pages, 13 figures