Fitting Parton Distribution Data with Multiplicative Normalization Uncertainties
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2010-06-02 v2 High Energy Physics - Experiment
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Abstract
We consider the generic problem of performing a global fit to many independent data sets each with a different overall multiplicative normalization uncertainty. We show that the methods in common use to treat multiplicative uncertainties lead to systematic biases. We develop a method which is unbiased, based on a self--consistent iterative procedure. We demonstrate the use of this method by applying it to the determination of parton distribution functions with the NNPDF methodology, which uses a Monte Carlo method for uncertainty estimation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0912.2276,
title = {Fitting Parton Distribution Data with Multiplicative Normalization Uncertainties},
author = {The NNPDF Collaboration and Richard D. Ball and Luigi Del Debbio and Stefano Forte and Alberto Guffanti and Jose I. Latorre and Juan Rojo and Maria Ubiali},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0912.2276},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
33 pages, 5 figures: published version