10.3 Systematic Uncertainties in Fitting
10.3.2 Cross-feed Shape
In each mass bin, we completely fix the shape of the cross-feed component of the background.
We describe the cross-feed by an Argus plus a Nvs, so we identify five parameters with which we need to associate a systematic uncertainty: the peak of the Nvs, the width of the Nvs, the tail of the Nvs, the slope of the Argus, and the fractional contribution of the peaking component to the total cross-feed. Similar to the signal CB section above, we turn to the K∗ region for guidance on systematics. First, in this region, we allow all parameters to float in MC, and find the fractional peaking contribution to be correlated with the slope of the Argus (correlation coefficient of 0.793) and the width of the Nvs (correlation coefficient of 0.829). We find the slope of the Argus and the width themselves to also be correlated (correlation coefficient of 0.654). The peak and tail parameters are not correlated with any of these (largest correlation with the other three parameters is 0.098), but are themselves anti-correlated with each other (correlation coefficient of -0.744).
To evaluate the best values for these parameters, we allow them to float in theK∗region in the fits to the data. We find that allowing both the peak and tail parameters to float
Table 10.2: The signal CB systematics associated with fixing each parameter in our final fit. The reported values are the %-change in signal yield when changing each parameter by the uncertainty given in the text to reflect the best fit value found in the K∗ region. The
∆ rest column reflects shifting the three CB parameters, alpha, width, and peak position, simultaneously.
Xs mass bin ∆tail ∆ Total rest
0.6 to 0.7 0.21 4.69 4.69 0.7 to 0.8 0.01 0.92 0.92 0.8 to 0.9 -0.04 0.99 0.99 0.9 to 1.0 -0.04 1.02 1.02 1.0 to 1.1 -0.03 1.67 1.67 1.1 to 1.2 -0.02 2.51 2.51 1.2 to 1.3 -0.02 1.25 1.25 1.3 to 1.4 -0.02 1.45 1.45 1.4 to 1.5 -0.03 1.74 1.74 1.5 to 1.6 -0.01 1.42 1.42 1.6 to 1.7 -0.02 1.15 1.15 1.7 to 1.8 -0.03 2.77 2.77 1.8 to 1.9 -0.03 1.17 1.17 1.9 to 2.0 0.01 2.69 2.69 2.0 to 2.2 -0.01 2.91 2.91 2.2 to 2.4 -0.02 2.30 2.30 2.4 to 2.6 0.00 3.10 3.10 2.6 to 2.8 -0.04 12.39 12.39
gives unreasonable values (the fitter focuses on describing a small feature with a Gaussian), so we allow the tail parameter alone to float and find the best fit value of -0.229±0.20, as compared to our default value of -0.16. We therefore will shift our value for the tail parameter down by -43% to evaluate a systematic in all mass regions (we use % shifts for the cross-feed shape parameters since we individually parameterize five separate regions).
We then allowed the peak position to float, and find the best fit location at 5.278±0.0011, compared to our default value of 5.2804. We therefore shift this parameter by -0.046% in each bin to evaluate the systematic.
We allow the peaking XF fraction, slope of the Argus, and width of the Nvs to float simultaneously, since these parameters are correlated, but fix the total yield and combina- toric Argus slope. We find the best fit value of the peaking fraction is 20% higher than the default value. We therefore use this shift up in each bin to evaluate the systematic. We find the best fit slope value is shifted to−55±58 from the default of−100.21. We therefore shift the slope by 45% to evaluate a systematic for fixing this shape parameter in each mass bin. Finally, we find the best width to be 0.00426±0.00079 compared to our default value of 0.0035, we therefore evaluate a systematic by shifting the width up 22% in each mass bin.
To evaluate a systematic, we evaluate the change in signal yield when shifting the width, fraction, and slope up at the same time (since these are correlated). Similarly, we evaluate a systematic by shifting the peak and tail parameters simultaneously. These two systematics we add in quadrature to get a total systematic on the cross-feed shape. We give the value of each of these shifts, and the total uncertainty for the XF shape in Table 10.3.
We combine the XF with the signal, and fix the fractional contribution of signal to signal+cross-feed; we need to associate an uncertainty with this. From fits to signal and XF MC with all signal and XF parameters floating, we find that the fractional contribution of signal is in general anti-correlated with the shape parameters of the XF distribution, and directly correlated with many of the signal shape parameters. It is not clear how the shape parameters are correlated between the signal distribution and the XF distribution.
We will simplify this situation, and set the fractional contribution of signal to be completely
Table 10.3: The average %-change in signal yield when each parameter is shifted by the values given in the text. The total uncertainty is the sum in quadrature of each of the columns.
Xs mass bin shift width, shift tail Total fraction, slope and peak uncertainty
0.6 to 0.7 -15.31 -4.35 15.92
0.7 to 0.8 2.30 1.86 2.96
0.8 to 0.9 -0.09 1.48 1.48
0.9 to 1.0 0.21 1.41 1.43
1.0 to 1.1 3.60 3.45 4.99
1.1 to 1.2 4.21 3.73 5.62
1.2 to 1.3 3.90 2.80 4.81
1.3 to 1.4 3.33 2.89 4.41
1.4 to 1.5 3.22 3.09 4.46
1.5 to 1.6 3.12 0.52 3.17
1.6 to 1.7 3.43 0.83 3.53
1.7 to 1.8 2.73 1.46 3.10
1.8 to 1.9 2.87 0.25 2.88
1.9 to 2.0 2.15 2.81 3.54
2.0 to 2.2 3.39 1.02 3.54
2.2 to 2.4 2.02 3.83 4.32
2.4 to 2.6 2.71 -2.33 3.57
2.6 to 2.8 -5.58 56.58 56.86
correlated with the signal shape (uncertainties add linearly), completely anti-correlated with the cross-feed shape parameters (uncertainties add in quadrature and two times the cross term is subtracted off), and the signal shape parameters are uncorrelated with the cross-feed parameters (uncertainties add in quadrature).
To obtain the uncertainty on the fractional signal contribution, we allow this value to float, fixing the fractional yield of signal+cross-feed and the Argus slope (so only one parameter is floating in this fit, the fraction of signal to signal+cross-feed). We take the difference between the fitted value and our default as our uncertainty on this parameter, and we then refit the fractional signal yield with this parameter shifted up and down by our uncertainty on this parameter. We quote the average change in the signal yield as our systematic uncertainty. The systematic uncertainty for this parameter, and the overall systematic uncertainty from the signal+cross-feed distribution in each mass bin is given in Table 10.4.