English

Di-Higgs to 4b with Bayesian inference: improving simulation estimates

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2025-12-01 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

Measuring di-Higgs production in the four-bottom channel is challenged by overwhelming QCD backgrounds and imperfect simulations. We develop a Bayesian mixture model that simultaneously infers signal and background fractions and their individual shapes directly in the signal region. The likelihood is a nuanced combination of a one-dimensional kinematic discriminator and per-jet flavour scores; with their correlations incorporated via kinematic bins. Monte Carlo informs weak Dirichlet priors, while the posterior adjusts to the interplay of the model, priors and observed data. Using pseudo-data simulated with standard tools and with controlled mismatches, we show that the method corrects biased priors, delivers calibrated 68-95% credible intervals for the signal count, and improves dataset-level ROC/AUC relative to simple cut-and-count baselines. This study highlights how Bayesian inference can harvest information present in the signal region and self-calibrate model parameters, providing a robust route to increased sensitivity in di-Higgs searches.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.21832,
  title  = {Di-Higgs to 4b with Bayesian inference: improving simulation estimates},
  author = {Ezequiel Alvarez and Leandro Da Rold and Manuel Szewc and Alejandro Szynkman and Santiago Tanco and Tatiana Tarutina},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.21832},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

28 pages, 13 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:57:00.505Z