Limit setting procedures and theoretical uncertainties in Higgs boson searches
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2012-05-04 v2 High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract
We review the CLS method used by ATLAS and CMS to set exclusion limits on the mass of the Higgs boson. We investigate the impact of theoretical uncertainties of Higgs boson cross-sections due to higher order perturbative corrections and convolution with parton densities on exclusion limits. We illustrate the impact on limits of commonly used treatments of these uncertainties with a simulated Higgs search. We adopt a "worst- case scenario" for the perturbative uncertainties. We find that the statistical methods of ATLAS and CMS do not incorporate this specific uncertainty adequately.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1204.3851,
title = {Limit setting procedures and theoretical uncertainties in Higgs boson searches},
author = {Bernhard Mistlberger and Falko Dulat},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.3851},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
20 pages, 7 figures