Reproducibility and Replication of Experimental Particle Physics Results

Abstract

Recently, much attention has been focused on the replicability of scientific results, causing scientists, statisticians, and journal editors to examine closely their methodologies and publishing criteria. Experimental particle physicists have been aware of the precursors of non-replicable research for many decades and have many safeguards to ensure that the published results are as reliable as possible. The experiments require large investments of time and effort to design, construct, and operate. Large collaborations produce and check the results, and many papers are signed by more than three thousand authors. This paper gives an introduction to what experimental particle physics is and to some of the tools that are used to analyze the data. It describes the procedures used to ensure that results can be computationally reproduced, both by collaborators and by non-collaborators. It describes the status of publicly available data sets and analysis tools that aid in reproduction and recasting of experimental results. It also describes methods particle physicists use to maximize the reliability of the results, which increases the probability that they can be replicated by other collaborations or even the same collaborations with more data and new personnel. Examples of results that were later found to be false are given, both with failed replication attempts and one with alarmingly successful replications. While some of the characteristics of particle physics experiments are unique, many of the procedures and techniques can be and are used in other fields.

50 pages, 6 figures. Please see https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/32yz0u49/release/1 for a thoughtful comment by Andrew Fowlie, and https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/57tywz64/release/1 for the authors' response

References in corpus (8)

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
• Systematic Errors: facts and fictions
• Not Normal: the uncertainties of scientific measurements
• Asymmetric Statistical Errors
• Development and validation of HERWIG 7 tunes from CMS underlying-event measurements
• Asymmetric Systematic Errors
• Search for supersymmetry in events with a photon, a lepton, and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Simple and statistically sound recommendations for analysing physical theories
• A Systematic Literature Review of Undergraduate Data Science Education Research
• Nested sampling for frequentist computation: fast estimation of small $p$-values
• Comment on "Reproducibility and Replication of Experimental Particle Physics Results"