2004/03/17 by G. D'Agostini, D'Agostini, G.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Data Analysis #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an) #astro-ph #hep-ph #physics.data-an
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.physics/0403086
21 pages, 5 figures. improved version with some corrections, additional remarks and references (download of new version is recommended). This paper and related work are also available at http://www.roma1.infn.it/~dagos/prob+stat.html
arxiv created 2004/04/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
The issue of asymmetric uncertainties resulting from fits, nonlinear propagation and systematic effects is reviewed. It is shown that, in all cases, whenever a published result is given with asymmetric uncertainties, the value of the physical quantity of interest is biased with respect to what would be obtained using at best all experimental and theoretical information that contribute to evaluate the combined uncertainty. The probabilistic solution to the problem is provided both in exact and in approximated forms.