Publications

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Goodness of fit by Neyman-Pearson testing

Gaia Grosso, Marco Letizia, Maurizio Pierini, Andrea Wulzer

SciPost Phys. 16, 123 (2024) · published 13 May 2024 | · pdf

The Neyman-Pearson strategy for hypothesis testing can be employed for goodness of fit if the alternative hypothesis is selected from data by exploring a rich parametrised family of models, while controlling the impact of statistical fluctuations. The New Physics Learning Machine (NPLM) methodology has been developed as a concrete implementation of this idea, to target the detection of new physical effects in the context of high energy physics collider experiments. In this paper we conduct a comparison of this approach to goodness of fit with others, in particular with classifier-based strategies that share strong similarities with NPLM. From our comparison, NPLM emerges as the more sensitive test to small departures of the data from the expected distribution and not biased towards detecting specific types of anomalies. These features make it suited for agnostic searches for new physics at collider experiments. Its deployment in other scientific and industrial scenarios should be investigated.
Accessing CKM suppressed top decays at the LHC

Darius A. Faroughy, Jernej F. Kamenik, Manuel Szewc, Jure Zupan

SciPost Phys. 16, 131 (2024) · published 24 May 2024 | · pdf

We propose an extension of the existing experimental strategy for measuring branching fractions of top quark decays, targeting specifically $t\to j_q W$, where $j_q$ is a light quark jet. The improved strategy uses orthogonal $b$- and $q$-taggers, and adds a new observable, the number of light-quark-tagged jets, to the already commonly used observable, the fraction of $b$-tagged jets in an event. Careful inclusion of the additional complementary observable significantly increases the expected statistical power of the analysis, with the possibility of excluding $|V_{tb}|=1$ at $95\%$ C.L. at the HL-LHC, and accessing directly the standard model value of $|V_{td}|^2+|V_{ts}|^2$.
Improvement and generalization of ABCD method with Bayesian inference

Ezequiel Alvarez, Leandro Da Rold, Manuel Szewc, Alejandro Szynkman, Santiago A. Tanco, Tatiana Tarutina

SciPost Phys. Core 7, 043 (2024) · published 15 July 2024 | · pdf

To find New Physics or to refine our knowledge of the Standard Model at the LHC is an enterprise that involves many factors, such as the capabilities and the performance of the accelerator and detectors, the use and exploitation of the available information, the design of search strategies and observables, as well as the proposal of new models. We focus on the use of the information and pour our effort in re-thinking the usual data-driven ABCD method to improve it and to generalize it using Bayesian Machine Learning techniques and tools. We propose that a dataset consisting of a signal and many backgrounds is well described through a mixture model. Signal, backgrounds and their relative fractions in the sample can be well extracted by exploiting the prior knowledge and the dependence between the different observables at the event-by-event level with Bayesian tools. We show how, in contrast to the ABCD method, one can take advantage of understanding some properties of the different backgrounds and of having more than two independent observables to measure in each event. In addition, instead of regions defined through hard cuts, the Bayesian framework uses the information of continuous distribution to obtain soft-assignments of the events which are statistically more robust. To compare both methods we use a toy problem inspired by $pp\to hh\to b\bar b b \bar b$, selecting a reduced and simplified number of processes and analysing the flavor of the four jets and the invariant mass of the jet-pairs, modeled with simplified distributions. Taking advantage of all this information, and starting from a combination of biased and agnostic priors, leads us to a very good posterior once we use the Bayesian framework to exploit the data and the mutual information of the observables at the event-by-event level. We show how, in this simplified model, the Bayesian framework outperforms the ABCD method sensitivity in obtaining the signal fraction in scenarios with 1% and 0.5% true signal fractions in the dataset. We also show that the method is robust against the absence of signal. We discuss potential prospects for taking this Bayesian data-driven paradigm into more realistic scenarios.
The NFLikelihood: An unsupervised DNNLikelihood from normalizing flows

Humberto Reyes-González, Riccardo Torre

SciPost Phys. Core 7, 048 (2024) · published 31 July 2024 | · pdf

We propose the NFLikelihood, an unsupervised version, based on Normalizing Flows, of the DNNLikelihood proposed in [Eur. Phys. J. C 80, 664 (2020)]. We show, through realistic examples, how Autoregressive Flows, based on affine and rational quadratic spline bijectors, are able to learn complicated high-dimensional Likelihoods arising in High Energy Physics (HEP) analyses. We focus on a toy LHC analysis example already considered in the literature and on two Effective Field Theory fits of flavor and electroweak observables, whose samples have been obtained through the HEPFit code. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of the unsupervised approach with respect to the supervised one and discuss a possible interplay between the two.
Update on the angular resolution of GRAPES-3 experiment based on Moon shadow analysis

D. Pattanaik, S. Ahmad, M. Chakraborty, S. R. Dugad, U. D. Goswami, S. K. Gupta, B. Hariharan, Y. Hayashi, P. Jagadeesan, A. Jain, P. Jain, S. Kawakami, H. Kojima, S. Mahapatra, P. K. Mohanty, R. Moharana, Y. Muraki, P. K. Nayak, T. Nonaka, A. Oshima, B. P. Pant, M. Rameez, K. Ramesh, L. V. Reddy, S. Shibata, F. Varsi, M. Zuberi

SciPost Phys. Proc. 13, 033 (2023) · published 29 September 2023 | · pdf

GRAPES-3 is an extensive air shower array located at Ooty (11.6$^\circ$N, 76.7$^\circ$E, 2200 m a.s.l.) in southern India. Recently, the angular resolution of the GRAPES-3 array has been improved by correcting the shower front curvature based on the shower size and age. Here, we present the results of the angular resolution and pointing accuracy of the array through observation of the Moon shadow. We have analyzed the data for the period of 2014-2016 containing $\sim$ 3$×$10$^9$ air shower events with a median energy of 15 TeV. A significant improvement in the angular resolution has been observed compared to the earlier analysis by the group through the Moon shadow method and is comparable to the arrays located at a 2 km higher altitude than the GRAPES-3 experiment.
Hyperons - a strange key to the strong interaction

Karin Schoenning

SciPost Phys. Proc. 3, 027 (2020) · published 25 February 2020 | · pdf

Hyperons provide new angles on two of the most challenging problems in contempo- rary physics: a coherent and quantitative description of the strong interaction, and the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. In these proceedings, I will demonstrate the merits of hyperons as a diagnostic tool using two recent measurements by the BE- SIII experiment as an illustrative example. Furthermore, I will highlight the prospect of future hyperon studies with the next-generation experiment PAND
Experimental input from $e^+e^-$ for $a_{\mu}$ light-by-light

Yuping Guo on behalf of BESIII Collaboration

SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 054 (2019) · published 9 May 2019 | · pdf

The anomalous magnetic momentum of the muon, $a_{\mu}$, has been measured and calculated with a precision up to $~0.5$ ppm, but there is a 3 to 4 standard deviations between these two values. The uncertainty in the calculation is dominated by the hadronic part, including the hadronic vacuum polarization and the hadronic light-by-light. The meson transition form factors and the helicity amplitudes can be used as input or constraint to the calculation of the hadronic light-by-light contribution. Latest experimental studies of the transition form factors of $\pi^0$, $\eta$, and $\eta^{*}$ and the cross-section of $\gamma\gamma^*\to\pi^+\pi-$from $e^+e^-$ collider are presented.
Tau reconstruction at CMS with a focus on high $ p_{T} $ taus

Soham Bhattacharya on behalf of The CMS Collaboration

SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 050 (2019) · published 22 February 2019 | · pdf

We present the algorithm and performance of tau reconstruction at the CMS experiment, while highlighting a dedicated reconstruction algorithm that uses calorimeter hits instead of tracks to reconstruct taus with high transverse momentum. Describing the standard Hadrons-Plus-Strips (HPS) algorithm and its dependence on track reconstruction and shower modelling, we present the calorimetric tau (calo-tau) reconstruction that uses minimal track information for high $ p_{T} $ taus. The pros and cons of these algorithms are discussed along with their performance and potential uses. It is found that the calo-tau algorithm outperforms the HPS algorithm in the high efficiency region. This study is work in progress, and is an attempt to tune the reconstruction for high $ p_{T} $ taus. The calo-tau algorithm is not yet an official tau reconstruction algorithm for CMS.
Search for lepton-flavour-violating decays of the $Z$ boson into a $\tau$-lepton and a light lepton with the ATLAS detector

Wing Sheung Chan on behalf of the ATLAS collaboration

SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 048 (2019) · published 22 February 2019 | · pdf

Lepton flavour violation in the charged lepton sector is an unambiguous signal of physics beyond the Standard Model. Searches for lepton flavour violation in decays of the $Z$ boson with the ATLAS detector is reported, focusing on decays into an electron or muon and a hadronically decaying $\tau$-lepton, using $pp$ collisions data with a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Upper limits on the branching ratios of lepton-flavor-violating decays are set at the 95\% confidence level: $\mathcal{B}(Z\to e\tau) < 5.8\times10^{-5}$ and $\mathcal{B}(Z\to \mu\tau) < 2.4\times10^{-5}$. When combined with a previous ATLAS result based on $pp$ collisions data with a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, an upper limit of $\mathcal{B}(Z\to \mu\tau) < 1.3\times10^{-5}$ is obtained.
Measurement of the spectral function for the $τ^-\to K^-K_Sν_τ$ decay in BABAR experiment

Sergey I. Serednyakov on behalf of the BABAR collaboration

SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 046 (2019) · published 22 February 2019 | · pdf

The decay $\tau^{-}\to K^{-}K_S\nu_{\tau}$ has been studied using $430\times10^6$ $e^+e^-\to \tau^+\tau^-$ events produced at a center-of-mass energy around 10.6 GeV at the PEP-II collider and studied with the BABAR detector. The mass spectrum of the $K^{-}K_S$ system has been measured and the spectral function has been obtained. The measured branching fraction ${\cal B}(\tau^{-}\to K^{-}K_S\nu_{\tau}) = (0.739\pm 0.011(\rm stat.)\pm 0.020(\rm syst.))\times 10^{-3}$ is found to be in agreement with earlier measurements.

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