Related papers: On Observability of Signal over Background
We describe a statistical hypothesis test for the presence of a signal. The test allows the researcher to fix the signal location and/or width a priori, or perform a search to find the signal region that maximizes the signal. The background…
A Bayesian analysis of the probability of a signal in the presence of background is developed, and criteria are proposed for claiming evidence for, or the discovery of a signal. The method is general and in particular applicable to sparsely…
A typical experiment in high energy physics is considered. The result of the experiment is assumed to be a histogram consisting of bins or channels with numbers of corresponding registered events. The expected background and expected signal…
The frequentist interpretation of measurement results requires the specification of an ensemble of independent replications of the same experiment. For complex calculations of bias, coverage, significance, etc., this ensemble is often…
A frequentist definition of sensitivity of a search for new phenomena is discussed, that has several useful properties. It is based on completely standard concepts, is generally applicable, and has a very clear interpretation. It is…
Monte Carlo is a versatile and frequently used tool in statistical physics and beyond. Correspondingly, the number of algorithms and variants reported in the literature is vast, and an overview is not easy to achieve. In this pedagogical…
We describe a statistical hypothesis test for the presence of a signal based on the likelihood ratio statistic. We derive the test for a case of interest and also show that for that case the test works very well, even far out in the tails…
The frequentist statistical methods applied to search for short-baseline neutrino oscillations induced by a sterile neutrino with mass at the eV scale are reviewed and compared. The comparison is performed under limit setting and signal…
When the number of events associated with a signal process is estimated in particle physics, it is common practice to extrapolate background distributions from control regions to a predefined signal window. This allows accurate estimation…
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…
A suggestion is made for improving the Feldman Cousins method of estimating signal counts in the presence of background. The method concentrates on finding essential information about the signal and ignoring extraneous information about…
This paper presents a novel approach to estimate the Standard Model backgrounds based on modifying Monte Carlo predictions within their systematic uncertainties. The improved background model is obtained by altering the original predictions…
Particle physics experiments such as those run in the Large Hadron Collider result in huge quantities of data, which are boiled down to a few numbers from which it is hoped that a signal will be detected. We discuss a simple probability…
While gravitational waves have not yet been measured directly, data analysis from detection experiments commonly includes an upper limit statement. Such upper limits may be derived via a frequentist or Bayesian approach; the theoretical…
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…
In particle physics and cosmology, distinguishing subtle new physics signals from established backgrounds is a fundamental and persistent challenge for phenomenologists. This paper discuss a simple and robust statistical framework to…
We consider the standard Neyman-Pearson hypothesis test of a signal-plus-background hypothesis and background-only hypothesis in the presence of uncertainty on the background-only prediction. Surprisingly, this problem has not been…
Observational astrophysics consists of making inferences about the Universe by comparing data and models. The credible intervals placed on model parameters are often as important as the maximum a posteriori probability values, as the…
The steadily increasing size of scientific Monte Carlo simulations and the desire for robust, correct, and reproducible results necessitates rigorous testing procedures for scientific simulations in order to detect numerical problems and…
The problem of detecting new signals in the presence of an unknown background is ubiquitous in scientific discoveries and is especially prominent in the physical sciences. Most solutions proposed thus far to address the problem focus on…