English

Dealing with Nuisance Parameters using Machine Learning in High Energy Physics: a Review

Machine Learning 2021-01-19 v2 Machine Learning High Energy Physics - Experiment High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability

Abstract

In this work we discuss the impact of nuisance parameters on the effectiveness of machine learning in high-energy physics problems, and provide a review of techniques that allow to include their effect and reduce their impact in the search for optimal selection criteria and variable transformations. The introduction of nuisance parameters complicates the supervised learning task and its correspondence with the data analysis goal, due to their contribution degrading the model performances in real data, and the necessary addition of uncertainties in the resulting statistical inference. The approaches discussed include nuisance-parameterized models, modified or adversary losses, semi-supervised learning approaches, and inference-aware techniques.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.09121,
  title  = {Dealing with Nuisance Parameters using Machine Learning in High Energy Physics: a Review},
  author = {Tommaso Dorigo and Pablo de Castro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.09121},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

43 pages, 5 figures. v1: original review manuscript. v2: text improvement/fixes from review process

R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:12:11.143Z