The impact of priors and observables on parameter inferences in the constrained MSSM

By Roberto Trotta, Farhan Feroz, M. Hobson, L. Roszkowski, R. Ruiz de Austri. 2008

214 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use a newly released version of the SuperBayeS code to analyze the impact of the choice of priors and the influence of various constraints on the statistical conclusions for the preferred values of the parameters of the Constrained MSSM. We assess the effect in a Bayesian framework and compare it with an alternative likelihood-based measure of a profile likelihood. We employ a new scanning algorithm (MultiNest) which increases the computational efficiency by a factor ~ 200 with respect to previously used techniques. We demonstrate that the currently available data are not yet sufficiently constraining to allow one to determine the preferred values of CMSSM parameters in a way that is completely independent of the choice of priors and statistical measures. While B R ( ? Xs?) generally favors large m0, this is in some contrast with the preference for low values of m0 and m1/2 that is almost entirely a consequence of a combination of prior effects and a single constraint coming from the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, which remains somewhat controversial. Using an information-theoretical measure, we find that the cosmological dark matter abundance determination provides at least 80% of the total constraining power of all available observables. Despite the remaining uncertainties, prospects for direct detection in the CMSSM remain excellent, with the spin-independent neutralino-proton cross section almost guaranteed above ?SIp 10-10pb, independently of the choice of priors or statistics. Likewise, gluino and lightest Higgs discovery at the LHC remain highly encouraging. While in this work we have used the CMSSM as particle physics model, our formalism and scanning technique can be readily applied to a wider class of models with several free parameters.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8fda9b4c05bb1599614ec29f91545f3c68e0c384

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Citations in the corpus

CONSTRAINTS ON COSMIC-RAY PROPAGATION MODELS FROM A GLOBAL BAYESIAN ANALYSIS (2010, methodology): “In this paper we adopt the publicly available MultiNest algorithm (Feroz & Hobson 2008), as implemented in the SuperBayeS code (Trotta et al. 2008; Ruiz de Austri et al. 2006), that we have interfaced with the GALPROP code.”
Dark Matter Candidates from Particle Physics and Methods of Detection (2010, background): “The lower left shaded regions are predictions for neutralino dark matter in the general minimal supersymmetric standard model (67) (light grey) and minimal supergravity (68) (dark grey).”
THE BARYONIC TULLY–FISHER RELATION OF GAS-RICH GALAXIES AS A TEST OF ΛCDM AND MOND (2011, background): “The XENON100 Collaboration (2011) has excluded much of the mass–cross section parameter space where WIMPs were expected to reside (Trotta et al. 2008).”
Cosmology and Fundamental Physics with the Euclid Satellite (2012, background): “Discrepancies might occur in the presence of large “volume and sampling effects” arising from insufficiently constraining data sets and highly multi-modal likelihoods [1170].”