Related papers: Is the bump significant? An axion-search example
Several experiments in high-energy physics and astrophysics can be treated as on/off measurements, where an observation potentially containing a new source or effect ("on" measurement) is contrasted with a background-only observation free…
We discuss the conditions under which Scan Statistics can be fruitfully implemented to signal a departure from the underlying probability model that describes the experimental data. It is shown that local perturbations (``bumps'' or…
We developed a dedicated statistical test for a massive detection of spot- and facula-crossing anomalies in multiple exoplanetary transit lightcurves, based on the frequentist $p$-value thresholding. This test was used to augment our…
Standard Model extensions often predict low-mass and very weakly interacting particles, such as the axion. A number of small-scale experiments at the intensity/precision frontier are actively searching for these elusive particles,…
When searching for a new resonance somewhere in a possible mass range, the significance of observing a local excess of events must take into account the probability of observing such an excess anywhere in the range. This is the so called…
In high-energy astrophysics, it is common practice to account for the background overlaid with the counts from the source of interest with the help of auxiliary measurements carried on by pointing off-source. In this "on/off" measurement,…
The model representing two independent Poisson processes, labelled as "signal" and "background" and both contributing at the same time to the total number of counted events, is considered from a Bayesian point of view. This is a widely used…
The cleanest way to discover a new particle is generally the "bump-hunt" methodology: looking for a localised excess in a mass (or related) distribution. However, if the mass of the particle being discovered is not known the procedure of…
Searches for faint signals in counting experiments are often encountered in particle physics and astrophysics, as well as in other fields. Many problems can be reduced to the case of a model with independent and Poisson-distributed signal…
Blue axion isocurvature perturbations are both theoretically well-motivated and interesting from a detectability perspective. These power spectra generically have a break from the blue region to a flat region. Previous investigations of the…
When searching over a large parameter space for anomalies such as events, peaks, objects, or particles, there is a large probability that spurious signals with seemingly high significance will be found. This is known as the look-elsewhere…
Resonant anomaly detection methods have great potential for enhancing the sensitivity of traditional bump hunt searches. A key component of these methods is a high quality background template used to produce an anomaly score. Using the LHC…
Emission of relativistic axions from transient sources, such as axion star explosions, can lead to observable signatures. We show that axion bursts from collapsing axion stars can be detectable over the wide range of axion masses $10^{-15}…
Redundancy in biology may be explained by the need to optimize extreme searching processes, where one or few among many particles are requested to reach the target like in human fertilization. We show that non-Gaussian rare fluctuations in…
The precision of intensity measurements of the extragalactic X-ray Background (XRB) on an angular scale of about a degree is dominated by spatial fluctuations caused by source confusion noise. X-ray source counts at the flux level…
Searching for evidence of neutrino oscillations is an important problem in particle physics. Suppose that evidence for neutrino oscillations from an LSND experiment reports a significant positive oscillation probability, but that the LSND…
We provide the asymptotic minimax detection boundary for a bump, i.e. an abrupt change, in the mean function of a stationary Gaussian process. This will be characterized in terms of the asymptotic behavior of the bump length and height as…
In the real world, experimental data are rarely, if ever, distributed as a normal (Gaussian) distribution. As an example, a large set of data--such as the cross sections for particle scattering as a function of energy contained in the…
Detecting anomalies in large sets of observations is crucial in various applications, such as epidemiological studies, gene expression studies, and systems monitoring. We consider settings where the units of interest result in multiple…
Data driven modelling is vital to many analyses at collider experiments, however the derived inference of physical properties becomes subject to details of the model fitting procedure. This work brings a principled Bayesian picture, based…