https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-011-1554-0
Special Article - Tools for Experiment and Theory
Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics
1
Physics Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK
2
Physics Department, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA
3
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel
* e-mail: ofer.vitells@weizmann.ac.il
Received:
15
October
2010
Revised:
6
January
2011
Published online:
9
February
2011
We describe likelihood-based statistical tests for use in high energy physics for the discovery of new phenomena and for construction of confidence intervals on model parameters. We focus on the properties of the test procedures that allow one to account for systematic uncertainties. Explicit formulae for the asymptotic distributions of test statistics are derived using results of Wilks and Wald. We motivate and justify the use of a representative data set, called the “Asimov data set”, which provides a simple method to obtain the median experimental sensitivity of a search or measurement as well as fluctuations about this expectation.
© The Author(s), 2011