Systematic Analysis of HEP Collider Data

Abstract

Compelling arguments suggest the presence of new physics at energy scales that will be probed by frontier energy colliders over the next decade. Arguments for each of the many flavors of new physics that have been proposed seem much less compelling. The wide variety of experimental signatures by which new physics may manifest itself suggests the desirability of analyzing all high energy collider data in one systematic framework. These proceedings describe two potentially useful pieces of such a framework: Sleuth enables a model-independent search for new high-pT physics, and Quaero automates tests of particular hypotheses against high energy collider data. A sampling of algorithmic detail is provided in the form of a procedure for choosing an optimal binning when computing likelihood ratios.