Mitigation of the LHC Inverse Problem

Understand

The LHC inverse problem refers to the difficulties in determining the parameters of an underlying theory from data (to be) taken by the LHC experiments: if they find signals of new physics, and an underlying theory is assumed, could its parameters be determined uniquely, or do different parameter choices give indistinguishable experimental signatures? This inverse problem was studied before for a supersymmetric Standard Model with 15 free parameters.

• This earlier study found 283 indistinguishable pairs of parameter choices, called degenerate pairs, even if backgrounds are ignored.
• We can resolve all but 23 of those pairs by constructing a true \chi^2 distribution using mostly counting observables.
• The elimination of systematic errors would even allow separating the residual degeneracies.