Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Class imbalance techniques for high energy physics

  Christopher W. Murphy

  SciPost Phys. 7, 076 (2019) · published 5 December 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A common problem in a high energy physics experiment is extracting a signal from a much larger background. Posed as a classification task, there is said to be an imbalance in the number of samples belonging to the signal class versus the number of samples from the background class. In this work we provide a brief overview of class imbalance techniques in a high energy physics setting. Two case studies are presented: (1) the measurement of the longitudinal polarization fraction in same-sign $WW$ scattering, and (2) the decay of the Higgs boson to charm-quark pairs.

  8 citations

• NNLO constraints on proton PDFs from the SeaQuest and STAR experiments and other developments in the CTEQ-TEA global analysis

  Marco Guzzi, T. J. Hobbs, Tie-Jiun Hou, Xiaoxian Jing, Keping Xie, Aurore Courtoy, Sayipjamal Dulat, Jun Gao, Joey Huston, Pavel M. Nadolsky, Carl Schmidt, Ibrahim Sitiwaldi, Mengshi Yan, C.-P. Yuan

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 005 (2022) · published 11 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We review progress in the global QCD analysis by the CTEQ-TEA group since the publication of CT18 parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the proton. Specifically, we discuss comparisons of CT18 NNLO predictions with the LHC 13 TeV measurements as well as with the FNAL SeaQuest and BNL STAR data on lepton pair production. The specialized CT18X PDFs approximating saturation effects are compared with the CT18sx PDFs obtained using NLL/NLO small-x resummation. Short summaries are presented for the special CT18 parton distributions with fitted charm and with lattice QCD inputs. A recent comparative analysis of the impact of deuteron nuclear effects on the parton distributions by the CTEQ-JLab and CTEQ-TEA groups is summarized.

  8 citations

• Instantons, renormalons and the theta angle in integrable sigma models

  Marcos Mariño, Ramon Miravitllas, Tomas Reis

  SciPost Phys. 15, 184 (2023) · published 3 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Some sigma models which admit a theta angle are integrable at both $\vartheta=0$ and $\vartheta=\pi$. This includes the well-known $O(3)$ sigma model and two families of coset sigma models studied by Fendley. We consider the ground state energy of these models in the presence of a magnetic field, which can be computed with the Bethe Ansatz. We obtain explicit results for its non-perturbative corrections and we study the effect of the theta angle on them. We show that imaginary, exponentially small corrections due to renormalons remain unchanged, while instanton corrections change sign, as expected. We find in addition corrections due to renormalons which also change sign as we turn on the theta angle. Based on these results we present an explicit non-perturbative formula for the topological susceptibility of the $O(3)$ sigma model in the presence of a magnetic field, in the weak coupling limit.

  8 citations

• Goodness of fit by Neyman-Pearson testing

  Gaia Grosso, Marco Letizia, Maurizio Pierini, Andrea Wulzer

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

  8 citations

• Higgs decays to two leptons and a photon beyond leading order in the SMEFT

  Tyler Corbett, Thor Rasmussen

  SciPost Phys. 13, 112 (2022) · published 21 November 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present the three-body decay of the Higgs boson into two leptons and a photon to dimension-eight in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT). In order to obtain this result we interfere the full one-loop Standard Model result with the tree-level result in the SMEFT. This is the first calculation of the partial width of the Higgs boson into two leptons and a photon in the SMEFT to incorporate the full one-loop dependence for the Standard Model as well as the full tree level dimension-eight dependence in the SMEFT. We find that this channel can aid in distinguishing strongly interacting and weakly interacting UV completions of the SMEFT under standard assumptions. We also find that this channel presents the opportunity to distinguish different operator Classes within the SMEFT, potentially including contact $H\bar\ell\ell\gamma$ operators which are first generated only at dimension-eight in the SMEFT.

  8 citations

• Towards a method to anticipate dark matter signals with deep learning at the LHC

  Ernesto Arganda, Anibal D. Medina, Andres D. Perez, Alejandro Szynkman

  SciPost Phys. 12, 063 (2022) · published 16 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study several simplified dark matter (DM) models and their signatures at the LHC using neural networks. We focus on the usual monojet plus missing transverse energy channel, but to train the algorithms we organize the data in 2D histograms instead of event-by-event arrays. This results in a large performance boost to distinguish between standard model (SM) only and SM plus new physics signals. We use the kinematic monojet features as input data which allow us to describe families of models with a single data sample. We found that the neural network performance does not depend on the simulated number of background events if they are presented as a function of $S/\sqrt{B}$, where $S$ and $B$ are the number of signal and background events per histogram, respectively. This provides flexibility to the method, since testing a particular model in that case only requires knowing the new physics monojet cross section. Furthermore, we also discuss the network performance under incorrect assumptions about the true DM nature. Finally, we propose multimodel classifiers to search and identify new signals in a more general way, for the next LHC run.

  8 citations

• A massive variable flavour number scheme for the Drell-Yan process

  Rhorry Gauld

  SciPost Phys. 12, 024 (2022) · published 14 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The prediction of differential cross-sections in hadron-hadron scattering processes is typically performed in a scheme where the heavy-flavour quarks ($c, b, t$) are treated either as massless or massive partons. In this work, a method to describe the production of colour-singlet processes which combines these two approaches is presented. The core idea is that the contribution from power corrections involving the heavy-quark mass can be numerically isolated from the rest of the massive computation. These power corrections can then be combined with a massless computation (where they are absent), enabling the construction of differential cross-section predictions in a massive variable flavour number scheme. As an example, the procedure is applied to the low-mass Drell-Yan process within the LHCb fiducial region, where predictions for the rapidity and transverse-momentum distributions of the lepton pair are provided. To validate the procedure, it is shown how the $n_f$-dependent coefficient of a massless computation can be recovered from the massless limit of the massive one. This feature is also used to differentially extract the massless ${\rm N3LO}$ coefficient of the Drell-Yan process in the gluon-fusion channel.

  8 citations

• The one-loop tadpole in the geoSMEFT

  Tyler Corbett

  SciPost Phys. 11, 097 (2021) · published 26 November 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Making use of the geometric formulation of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory we calculate the one-loop tadpole diagrams to all orders in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory power counting. This work represents the first calculation of a one-loop amplitude beyond leading order in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, and discusses the potential to extend this methodology to perform similar calculations of observables in the near future.

  7 citations

• Whac-a-constraint with anomaly-free dark matter models

  Sonia El Hedri, Karl Nordström

  SciPost Phys. 6, 020 (2019) · published 7 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Theories where a fermionic dark matter candidate interacts with the Standard Model through a vector mediator are often studied using minimal models, which are not necessarily anomaly-free. In fact, minimal anomaly-free simplified models are usually strongly constrained by either direct detection experiments or collider searches for dilepton resonances. In this paper, we study the phenomenology of models with a fermionic dark matter candidate that couples axially to a leptophobic vector mediator. Canceling anomalies in these models requires considerably enlarging their field content. For an example minimal scenario we show that the additional fields lead to a potentially much richer phenomenology than the one predicted by the original simplified model. In particular collider searches for pair-produced neutralinos and charginos can be more sensitive than traditional monojet searches in thermally motivated parts of the parameter space where the mediator is outside the reach of current searches.

  7 citations

• Many phases of generalized 3D instanton crystals

  Matti Jarvinen, Vadim Kaplunovsky, Jacob Sonnenschein

  SciPost Phys. 11, 018 (2021) · published 23 July 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Nuclear matter at large number of colors is necessarily in a solid phase. In particular holographic nuclear matter takes the form of a crystal of instantons of the flavor group. In this article we initiate the analysis of the three-dimensional crystal structures and the orientation patterns for the two-body potential that follows from holographic duality. The outcome of the analysis includes several unexpected results. We perform simulations of ensembles of O(10000) instantons whereby we identify the lattice structure and orientations for the different values of the weight factors of the non-Abelian orientation terms in the two-body potential. The resulting phase diagram is surprisingly complex, including a variety of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic crystals with various global orientation patterns, and various "non-Abelian" crystals where orientations have no preferred direction. The latter include variants of face-centered-cubic, hexagonal, and simple cubic crystals which may have remarkably large or small aspect ratios. The simulation results are augmented by analytic analysis of the long-distance divergences, and numerical computation of the (divergence free) energy differences between the non-Abelian crystals, which allows us to precisely determine the structure of the phase diagram.

  7 citations