Contributor info: Dr Luigi Favaro

Barry M. Dillon, Luigi Favaro, Friedrich Feiden, Tanmoy Modak, Tilman Plehn

SciPost Phys. Core 7, 056 (2024) · published 16 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We develop a self-supervised method for density-based anomaly detection using contrastive learning, and test it using event-level anomaly data from CMS ADC2021. The AnomalyCLR technique is data-driven and uses augmentations of the background data to mimic non-Standard-Model events in a model-agnostic way. It uses a permutation-invariant Transformer Encoder architecture to map the objects measured in a collider event to the representation space, where the data augmentations define a representation space which is sensitive to potential anomalous features. An AutoEncoder trained on background representations then computes anomaly scores for a variety of signals in the representation space. With AnomalyCLR we find significant improvements on performance metrics for all signals when compared to the raw data baseline.

Ranit Das, Luigi Favaro, Theo Heimel, Claudius Krause, Tilman Plehn, David Shih

SciPost Phys. 16, 031 (2024) · published 25 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Well-trained classifiers and their complete weight distributions provide us with a well-motivated and practicable method to test generative networks in particle physics. We illustrate their benefits for distribution-shifted jets, calorimeter showers, and reconstruction-level events. In all cases, the classifier weights make for a powerful test of the generative network, identify potential problems in the density estimation, relate them to the underlying physics, and tie in with a comprehensive precision and uncertainty treatment for generative networks.

Barry M. Dillon, Luigi Favaro, Tilman Plehn, Peter Sorrenson, Michael Krämer

SciPost Phys. Core 6, 074 (2023) · published 3 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Autoencoders are an effective analysis tool for the LHC, as they represent one of its main goal of finding physics beyond the Standard Model. The key challenge is that out-of-distribution anomaly searches based on the compressibility of features do not apply to the LHC, while existing density-based searches lack performance. We present the first autoencoder which identifies anomalous jets symmetrically in the directions of higher and lower complexity. The normalized autoencoder combines a standard bottleneck architecture with a well-defined probabilistic description. It works better than all available autoencoders for top vs QCD jets and reliably identifies different dark-jet signals.