# Preserving physically important variables in optimal event selections: A case study in Higgs physics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.02098 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02098/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 3 Jul 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Decorrelation using Optimal Transport](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.05187/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Analyses of collider data, often assisted by modern Machine Learning methods, condense a number of observables into a few powerful discriminants for the separation of the targeted signal process from the contributing backgrounds. These discriminants are highly correlated with important physical observables; using them in the event selection thus leads to the distortion of physically relevant distributions. We present a novel method based on a differentiable estimate of mutual information, a measure of non-linear dependency between variables, to construct a discriminant that is statistically independent of a number of selected observables, and so manages to preserve their distributions in the event selection. Our strategy is evaluated in a realistic setting, the analysis of the Standard Model Higgs boson decaying into a pair of bottom quarks. Using the distribution of the invariant mass of the di-b-jet system to extract the Higgs boson signal strength, our method achieves state-of-the-art performance compared to other decorrelation techniques, while significantly improving the sensitivity of a similar, cut-based, analysis published by ATLAS.