9–11 Jun 2025
Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas
America/Sao_Paulo timezone

Confidence intervals in particle physics

Not scheduled
20m
Auditório Ministro João Alberto Lins de Barros (Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas)

Auditório Ministro João Alberto Lins de Barros

Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas

Rua Dr. Xavier Sigaud 150 Urca, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil
Talk Lectures 1

Speaker

Dario Rodrigues (Departamento de Física. Buenos Aires, Argentina, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y CONICET - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires (IFIBA). Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Description

This three-lecture series will explore the construction and interpretation of confidence intervals within the context of particle physics. We will begin by defining the likelihood function and highlighting its central role in statistical inference. Through a concrete example, we will examine how the likelihood depends on the number of observed events, with special attention to the challenges and appropriate strategies in the low-statistics regime typical of particle physics experiments. We will then review various methods for constructing confidence intervals, comparing their assumptions and practical applications. Finally, we will discuss the connection between the likelihood function and the least-squares method, and how a quantity following a chi-squared distribution can be used to assess the significance of results or to set exclusion limits.

Author

Dario Rodrigues (Departamento de Física. Buenos Aires, Argentina, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y CONICET - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires (IFIBA). Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Presentation materials

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