Combinations of measurements: obtain mean and errors

ChrisVer
Science Advisor
Messages
3,372
Reaction score
465
I was looking at the attached picture, where it gives the Higgs Mass obtained from the two different channels from ATLAS and CMS.

Let's only talk about the diphoton channel : H\rightarrow \gamma \gamma
From the ATLAS the mass value is:
m_{Ah} =126.02 \pm 0.51
and the CMS:
m_{Ch} =124.70 \pm 0.34

Now it gives the combined result from ATLAS+CMS:
m_{ACh}=125.07 \pm 0.29

How can obtain the mean and error for the ATLAS+CMS?

I tried getting the weights w_i = \sum_j (C^{-1})_{ij} \Big/ \sum_{kl} (C^{-1})_{kl} with C the covariance matrix. Since they are different detectors they are not correlated and so the covariance matrix only has the variances on the diagonal. I obtain:
w_A \approx 3.84468/12.4952
w_C \approx 8.65052/12.4952
And I calculate the combined mass:
\bar{m}_{ACh} = \sum_i w_i m_{ih} = 125.106
I also tried to combine the errors. For the errors I used the statistical and systematic, given by:
syst= \sqrt{\sum_{ij} w_i w_j C_{ij}^{sys}}=\sqrt{w_A^2 0.27^2 + w_C^2 0.15^2}=0.133 \approx 0.13
stat= \sqrt{\sum_{i} w_i^2 C_{ii}^{stat}}=\sqrt{w_A^2 0.43^2 + w_C^2 0.31^2}=0.252 \approx 0.25
and \sigma_{tot} =\sqrt{(syst)^2+(stat)^2} =0.284 \approx 0.28

My result reads:
m_{h}^{(A+C,2\gamma)}(GeV) = 125.106 \pm 0.28 ( 0.25_{stat} \pm 0.13_{sys})
in comparison to
m_{h}^{(A+C,2\gamma)}(GeV) = 125.07 \pm 0.29 ( 0.25_{stat} \pm 0.14_{sys})
given ..The problem appears in the systematic error...
Any idea? Mine is that the measurements are considered somehow correlated in the systematics?
 

Attachments

  • b2.jpg
    b2.jpg
    39.4 KB · Views: 521
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
I strongly suspect they are using a more sophisticated statistical analysis than simply assuming everything is Gaussian ...
 
I don't know, I have seen several times giving the results from experiment A, experiment B etc... and then giving the A+B+... total result in similar figures.
So I'm trying to understand how they get the total result.
 
ChrisVer said:
I don't know, I have seen several times giving the results from experiment A, experiment B etc... and then giving the A+B+... total result in similar figures.

Of course you have, things are often very close to Gaussian. If this was all there was to combining ATLAS and CMS data, we would not need to wait for a combined analysis, anyone with a pocket calculator could do it.
 
A guess: they had data to more significant figures (for the errors) than presented.
 
Hi all, I've been a roulette player for more than 10 years (although I took time off here and there) and it's only now that I'm trying to understand the physics of the game. Basically my strategy in roulette is to divide the wheel roughly into two halves (let's call them A and B). My theory is that in roulette there will invariably be variance. In other words, if A comes up 5 times in a row, B will be due to come up soon. However I have been proven wrong many times, and I have seen some...
Thread 'Detail of Diagonalization Lemma'
The following is more or less taken from page 6 of C. Smorynski's "Self-Reference and Modal Logic". (Springer, 1985) (I couldn't get raised brackets to indicate codification (Gödel numbering), so I use a box. The overline is assigning a name. The detail I would like clarification on is in the second step in the last line, where we have an m-overlined, and we substitute the expression for m. Are we saying that the name of a coded term is the same as the coded term? Thanks in advance.

Similar threads

Replies
7
Views
2K
Replies
4
Views
2K
Replies
3
Views
2K
Replies
39
Views
27K
4
Replies
175
Views
25K
Back
Top