Related papers: Background Systematic Studies in VERITAS Data
The extragalactic background light records the history of infrared, optical and ultraviolet light radiation including re-radiation since the epoch of reionization. While challenging to measure directly, it can be measured indirectly via its…
Observations of gravitational waves emitted by merging compact binaries have provided tantalising hints about stellar astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. However, the physical parameters describing the systems, (mass, spin,…
The present generation of weak lensing surveys will be superseded by surveys run from space with much better sky coverage and high level of signal to noise ratio, such as SNAP. However, removal of any systematics or noise will remain a…
We investigate the bias and error in estimates of the cosmological parameter covariance matrix, due to sampling or modelling the data covariance matrix, for likelihood width and peak scatter estimators. We show that these estimators do not…
Our understanding of the $\gamma$-ray sky has improved dramatically in the past decade, however, the unresolved $\gamma$-ray background (UGRB) still has a potential wealth of information about the faintest $\gamma$-ray sources pervading the…
An analytical relationship between the statistical significance of an observed signal and the signal width in case of a large background was obtained. It can help to explain why high-energy experiments may have different conclusions on the…
The indirect detection of cosmic rays via the radio signal of extensive air showers is gaining a lot of ground. Many new arrays of radio antennas are under construction or in the phase of development. Calibrating these arrays is important…
Gravitational lensing magnification bias is a valuable tool for studying mass density profiles, with submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) serving as ideal background sources. The satellite distribution in galaxy clusters also provides insights…
During its first cycle of observations, VERITAS observed several GRBs in response to broadcast alerts from the Gamma-ray bursts Coordinates Network (GCN). The GRBs were followed up and observed thereafter with typical delays of 2 to 4…
To properly estimate signal significance while accounting for both statistical and systematic uncertainties, we conducted a study to analyze the impact of typical systematic uncertainties, such as background shape, signal shape, and the…
We study distributions of differences of unscaled Riemann zeta zeros, $\gamma-\gamma^{'}$, at large distances. We show, that independently of the height, a subset of finite number of successive zeros knows the locations of lower level…
Counts-in-cells (CIC) measurements contain a wealth of cosmological information yet are seldom used to constrain theories. Although we can predict the shape of the distribution for a given cosmology, to fit a model to the observed CIC…
The VERITAS gamma-ray observatory, situated in southern Arizona, is an array of four 12m diameter imaging Cherenkov telescopes, each with a 499-pixel photomultiplier-tube camera. The instrument is designed to detect astrophysical gamma rays…
We study distributions of differences of unscaled Riemann zeta zeros, $\gamma-\gamma^{'}$, at large. We show, that independently of the location of the zeros, i.e., even for zeros as high as $10^{23}$, their differences have similar…
We revisit and refine known tail inequalities and confidence bounds for the hypergeometric distribution, i.e., for the setting where we sample without replacement from a fixed population with binary values or properties. The results are…
Histograms are convenient non-parametric density estimators, which continue to be used ubiquitously. Summary quantities estimated from histogram-based probability density models depend on the choice of the number of bins. We introduce a…
We reassess the evidence that WMAP temperature maps contain a statistically significant "cold spot" by repeating the analysis using simple circular top-hat (disk) weights, as well as Gaussian weights of varying width. Contrary to previous…
The relative cosmic variance ($\sigma_v$) is a fundamental source of uncertainty in pencil-beam surveys and, as a particular case of count-in-cell statistics, can be used to estimate the bias between galaxies and their underlying…
Gamma-ray blazars are among the most extreme astrophysical sources, harboring phenomena far more energetic than those attainable by terrestrial accelerators. These galaxies are understood to be active galactic nuclei that are powered by…
In this note, an alternative for presenting the distribution of `significant' events in searches for new phenomena is described. The alternative is based on probability density functions used in the evaluation of the `significance' of an…