A search for a new resonance finds excess events above an expected background of…
PHYSICS · Subjective · Fermi University Physics · Mathematical Methods for Physics · Probability, statistics and stochastic methods · Probability, statistics and stochastic methods
Particle Physics, Ch Detectors, event reconstruction and claiming a discovery
Problem
A search for a new resonance finds 240 excess events above an expected background of 3600 events in the mass window used for the search. Treating the background count as a Poisson count whose fluctuation is Nbkg, compute the significance Nsig/Nbkg of the excess. State whether this reaches the conventional five-sigma discovery threshold.