Advances in High Energy Physics (Jan 2013)
A Nonparametric Peak Finder Algorithm and Its Application in Searches for New Physics
Abstract
We have developed an algorithm for nonparametric fitting and extraction of statistically significant peaks in the presence of statistical and systematic uncertainties. Applications of this algorithm for analysis of high-energy collision data are discussed. In particular, we illustrate how to use this algorithm in general searches for new physics in invariant-mass spectra using pp Monte Carlo simulations.