2021/07/06 by G. Cowan, Glen Cowan · 6 citations
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Anomalous magnetic dipole moment #Anomaly (physics) #Basis (linear algebra) #Context (archaeology) #Econometrics #Engineering #Geology #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Large deviations theory #Mathematics #Measurement uncertainty #Muon #Neutrino Physics Research #Nuclear physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Sensitivity (control systems) #Standard deviation #Statistical physics #Statistics #Systematic error #hep-ph #physics.data-an
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/epjconf/202225809002
published in EPJ Web of Conferences 258, 09002 (EDP Sciences) · 6 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2021/07/06 · openalex created_date 2021/07/19 · openalex publication_date 2022/01/01 · arxiv updated 2022/02/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The statistical significance that characterizes a discrepancy between a measurement and theoretical prediction is usually calculated assuming that the statistical and systematic uncertainties are known. Many types of systematic uncertainties are, however, estimated on the basis of approximate procedures and thus the values of the assigned errors are themselves uncertain. Here the impact of the uncertainty on the assigned uncertainty is investigated in the context of the muon g - 2 anomaly. The significance of the observed discrepancy between the Standard Model prediction of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment and measured values are shown to decrease substantially if the relative uncertainty in the uncertainty assigned to the Standard Model prediction exceeds around 30%. The reduction in sensitivity increases for higher significance, so that establishing a 5σ effect will require not only small uncertainties but the uncertainties themselves must be estimated accurately to correspond to one standard deviation.