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Searches for new physics in collision events using a statistical technique for anomaly detection

by S. V. Chekanov

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Submission summary

Authors (as registered SciPost users): Sergei Chekanov
Submission information
Preprint Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.06277v1  (pdf)
Date accepted: 2022-02-28
Date submitted: 2021-10-14 16:19
Submitted by: Chekanov, Sergei
Submitted to: SciPost Physics Proceedings
Proceedings issue: 50th International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics (ISMD2021)
Ontological classification
Academic field: Physics
Specialties:
  • High-Energy Physics - Experiment
  • High-Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Approaches: Experimental, Phenomenological

Abstract

This paper discusses a statistical anomaly-detection method for model-independent searches for new physics in collision events produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The method requires calculations of Z-scores for a large number of Lorenz-invariant variables to identify events that deviate from those expected for the Standard Model (SM).

Published as SciPost Phys. Proc. 10, 015 (2022)


Reports on this Submission

Anonymous Report 1 on 2022-1-28 (Invited Report)

  • Cite as: Anonymous, Report on arXiv:2110.06277v1, delivered 2022-01-28, doi: 10.21468/SciPost.Report.4264

Strengths

A clearly written paper, giving specifics of the simple statistical method and an example of good performance.

Weaknesses

Appropriate for proceedings.

Report

While not a block for proceedings publication, I note:

0) The RMM is introduced in the author's previous papers, but not really explained here despite not being a widely known concept. But there was a page limit...

1) The effective assumption of Gaussian X_i distributions for RMM seems a bit dangerous, since non-Gaussian tails could masquerade as BSM outliers. I think this can be remedied by a more explicit calculation of full empirical p-value from the found distribution, and conversion to Z, though.

2) The Fig 1 performance plots seem equally normalised across samples with very different cross-sections... this isn't quite clear from the presentation, and a log plot with more realistic cross-sections would illustrate the physics power better, especially re. how the BSM distribution compares to the SM tails.

Requested changes

None needed.

  • validity: high
  • significance: good
  • originality: good
  • clarity: high
  • formatting: excellent
  • grammar: excellent

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