A Novel in situ Trigger Combination Method

Understand

Searches for rare physics processes using particle detectors in high-luminosity colliding hadronic beam environments require the use of multi-level trigger systems to reject colossal background rates in real time.

• In analyses like the search for the Higgs boson, there is a need to maximize the signal acceptance by combining multiple different trigger chains when forming the offline data sample.
• In such statistically limited searches, datasets are often amassed over periods of several years, during which the trigger characteristics evolve and system performance can vary significantly.
• Reliable production cross-section measurements and upper limits must take into account a detailed understanding of the effective trigger inefficiency for every selected candidate event.