Related papers: Observability and Probability of Discovery in Futu…
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…
In the report the approach to estimation of quality of planned experiments is considered. This approach is based on the analysis of uncertainty, which will take place under the future hypotheses testing about the existence of a new…
$B$ physics plays important roles in searching for the new physics (NP) beyond the standard model (SM). Recently, some deviations between experimental data and SM predictions were reported, namely $R(D^{(*)})$, $P_5^\prime$ and…
The usual procedure for estimating the significance of a peak in a power spectrum is to calculate the probability of obtaining that value or a larger value by chance (known as the "p-value"), on the assumption that the time series contains…
Anomalies drive scientific discovery -- they are associated with the cutting edge of the research frontier, and thus typically exploit data in the low signal-to-noise regime. In astronomy, the prevalence of systematics --- both "known…
After the observation of a Higgs boson near 125 GeV, the high energy physics community is investigating possible next steps for entering into a new era in particle physics. It is planned that the Large Hadron Collider will deliver an…
Future CMB experiments have the potential to probe the density of relativistic species at the sub-percent level. Sensitivity at this level allows light thermal relics to be detected up to arbitrarily high decoupling temperatures.…
The best way to search for new physics is by using a diverse set of probes - not just experiments at the energy and the cosmic frontiers, but also the low-energy measurements relying on high precision and high luminosity. One example of…
We develop a likelihood methodology which can be used to search for evidence of burst repetition in the BATSE catalog, and to study the properties of the repetition signal. We use a simplified model of burst repetition in which a number…
In the next decade, high energy physicists will use very sophisticated equipment to record unprecedented amounts of data in the hope of making major advances in our understanding of particle phenomena. Some of the signals of new physics…
In experiments that are aimed at detecting astrophysical sources such as neutrino telescopes, one usually performs a search over a continuous parameter space (e.g. the angular coordinates of the sky, and possibly time), looking for the most…
Statistical significance measures the reliability of a result obtained from a random experiment. We investigate the number of repetitions needed for a statistical result to have a certain significance. In the first step, we consider…
Theoretical predictions of physical observables often involve extrapolations to regions that are poorly constrained by laboratory experiments and astrophysical observations. Without properly quantified theoretical errors, such model…
In physics the value of a theory is measured by its agreement with experimental data. But how should the physics community gauge the value of an emerging theory that has not been tested experimentally as of yet? With no reality check, a…
The new interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is based on a complex probability theory. An interpretation postulate specifies events which can be observed and it follows that the complex probability of such event is, in fact, a real positive…
This is the write-up of a set of lectures given at the Asia Europe Pacific School of High Energy Physics in Quy Nhon, Vietnam in September 2018, to an audience of PhD students in all branches of particle physics They cover the different…
In analyzing neutrino oscillation experiments it is often assumed that while new physics contributes to neutrino masses, neutrino interactions are given by the Standard Model. We develop a formalism to study new physics effects in neutrino…
Searches for statistically significant correlations between arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and classes of astrophysical objects are common in astroparticle physics. We present a method to test potential correlation…
There is a well-known problem in Null Hypothesis Significance Testing: many statistically significant results fail to replicate in subsequent experiments. We show that this problem arises because standard `point-form null' significance…
In this paper we introduce the three main notions of probability used by physicists and discuss how these are to be used when invoking spacelike separated observers in a relativistic format. We discuss a standard EPRB experiment and…