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arXiv · 1503.04767

Searching for a particle of unknown mass and lifetime in the presence of an unknown non-monotonic background

Mike Williams
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Abstract

Many extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics hypothesize the existence of new low-mass particles. Typically there are few theoretical constraints on the mass or lifetime of such particles. This requires the experimentalist to perform a search in which both the mass and lifetime of the particle are unknown. Such searches for low-mass particles are complicated by the possible presence of resonances and other non-monotonic backgrounds. This paper presents a simple and fast approach to assigning significance and setting limits in such searches.

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Mike Williams. 2015-03-16. Searching for a particle of unknown mass and lifetime in the presence of an unknown non-monotonic background. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/10/06/p06002

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