Simple and statistically sound recommendations for analysing physical theories
Abstract
Physical theories that depend on many parameters or are tested against data from many different experiments pose unique challenges to statistical inference. Many models in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology fall into one or both of these categories. These issues are often sidestepped with statistically unsound ad hoc methods, involving intersection of parameter intervals estimated by multiple experiments, and random or grid sampling of model parameters. Whilst these methods are easy to apply, they exhibit pathologies even in low-dimensional parameter spaces, and quickly become problematic to use and interpret in higher dimensions. In this article we give clear guidance for going beyond these procedures, suggesting where possible simple methods for performing statistically sound inference, and recommendations of readily-available software tools and standards that can assist in doing so. Our aim is to provide any physicists lacking comprehensive statistical training with recommendations for reaching correct scientific conclusions, with only a modest increase in analysis burden. Our examples can be reproduced with the code publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4322283.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2012.09874,
title = {Simple and statistically sound recommendations for analysing physical theories},
author = {Shehu S. AbdusSalam and Fruzsina J. Agocs and Benjamin C. Allanach and Peter Athron and Csaba Balázs and Emanuele Bagnaschi and Philip Bechtle and Oliver Buchmueller and Ankit Beniwal and Jihyun Bhom and Sanjay Bloor and Torsten Bringmann and Andy Buckley and Anja Butter and José Eliel Camargo-Molina and Marcin Chrzaszcz and Jan Conrad and Jonathan M. Cornell and Matthias Danninger and Jorge de Blas and Albert De Roeck and Klaus Desch and Matthew Dolan and Herbert Dreiner and Otto Eberhardt and John Ellis and Ben Farmer and Marco Fedele and Henning Flächer and Andrew Fowlie and Tomás E. Gonzalo and Philip Grace and Matthias Hamer and Will Handley and Julia Harz and Sven Heinemeyer and Sebastian Hoof and Selim Hotinli and Paul Jackson and Felix Kahlhoefer and Kamila Kowalska and Michael Krämer and Anders Kvellestad and Miriam Lucio Martinez and Farvah Mahmoudi and Diego Martinez Santos and Gregory D. Martinez and Satoshi Mishima and Keith Olive and Ayan Paul and Markus Tobias Prim and Werner Porod and Are Raklev and Janina J. Renk and Christopher Rogan and Leszek Roszkowski and Roberto Ruiz de Austri and Kazuki Sakurai and Andre Scaffidi and Pat Scott and Enrico Maria Sessolo and Tim Stefaniak and Patrick Stöcker and Wei Su and Sebastian Trojanowski and Roberto Trotta and Yue-Lin Sming Tsai and Jeriek Van den Abeele and Mauro Valli and Aaron C. Vincent and Georg Weiglein and Martin White and Peter Wienemann and Lei Wu and Yang Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.09874},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
15 pages, 4 figures. extended discussions. closely matches version accepted for publication