New likelihoods for shape analysis

Understand

We introduce a new kind of likelihood function based on the sequence of moments of the data distribution.

• Both binned and unbinned data samples are discussed, and the multivariate case is also derived.
• Building on this approach we lay out the formalism of shape analysis for signal searches.
• In addition to moment-based likelihoods, standard likelihoods and approximate statistical tests are provided.