Inferring the intensity of Poisson processes at the limit of the detector sensitivity (with a case study on gravitational wave burst search)
arXiv:hep-ex/9909047
Abstract
We consider the issue of reporting the result of search experiment in the most unbiased and efficient way, i.e. in a way which allows an easy interpretation and combination of results and which do not depend on whether the experimenters believe or not to having found the searched-for effect. Since this work uses the language of Bayesian theory, to which most physicists are not used, we find that it could be useful to practitioners to have in a single paper a simple presentation of Bayesian inference, together with an example of application of it in search of rare processes.
arXiv comment36 pages, 11 figures, Latex files using cernart.cls (included). This paper and related work are also available at http://www-zeus.roma1.infn.it/~agostini/prob+stat.html
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