8 July 2012

Are ATLAS people serious?


Is this the 5 sigma result of a serious experiment? Nobody in his right mind will agree that the black data points are due to the dotted curve. (Taken from https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/CONFNOTES/ATLAS-CONF-2012-091/ )

Bonus question: Are there more points above or below the red line?

6 comments:

  1. Clara,

    I see a lot of up and down fluctuation in the data but I have no clue on how the final graphs were arrived at. Tommaso has promised an explanation by tomorrow, so let's wait and see.

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  2. Where will we make the waist ? (i.e. the Higgs)
    (One tailor asks one lady)

    I am also surprised with the complete absence of any comments about the "down fluctuations" or deeps (say, the deep at 120 GeV is quite significant -- seemingly not less than 3 sigma ! and it did not disappear with the growing statistics -- so, it is a kind of systematics).

    A few words about "miniature black holes eating some events" would make me a bit happier!
    Well, seriously, why they do not try to find some sources of systematic errors? a kind of pixelization as an aftermath of the triggering procedures, or, say, growing frozen moisture (those blizzards from The Groundhog day) on their detectors, or something else, I don't know what..

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  3. So, Clara, are you happy with Tomasso's response on his blog dated July, 9th?

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  4. Of course not. But he will say more soon, I hope.

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  5. Many jump to criticize you for asking bold questions but I support your position. An honest scientist must always be given the benefit of the doubt. Healthy skepticism is to be encouraged and hard questions are necessary.

    I sincerely hope that no bias was introduced when analyzing the Higgs data of 2011 and 2012 and the two collaborations have truly worked independently. If there was a bias of sorts for the mH = 125 GeV Higgs ("keep looking" effect), we ought to hopefully find out by the end of the year.

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