A strategy for a general search for new phenomena using data-derived signal regions and its application within the ATLAS experiment

Understand

This paper describes a strategy for a general search used by the ATLAS Collaboration to find potential indications of new physics.

• Events are classified according to their final state into many event classes.
• For each event class an automated search algorithm tests whether the data are compatible with the Monte Carlo simulated expectation in various distributions sensitive to the effects of new physics.
• The significance of a deviation is quantified using pseudo-experiments.