Since 2022, when I got invited for a keynote talk at a Deep Learning school, I have been visiting...

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USERN: 10 Years Of Non-Profit Action Supporting Science Education And Research

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Baby Steps In The Reinforcement Learning World

I am moving some baby steps in the direction of Reinforcement Learning (RL) these days. In machine...

Tommaso Dorigo

Tommaso Dorigo is an experimental particle physicist, who works for the INFN at the University of Padova, and collaborates with the CMS and the SWGO experiments. He is the president of the Read More »

The Quote Of The Week

Mar 25 2011 | comment(s)

"The observed exclusion limit is found from the point where the 95% quantile (dotted
line) crosses the median value of the distribution of Q values for the QCD prediction
(dashed line). This occurs at Lambda = 9.5 TeV. The expected limit is Lambda = 5.7 TeV. [...]
As a cross-check, a Bayesian analysis of F(mjj) has been performed, [...]. This analysis sets a 95% credibility level of Lambda > 6.7 TeV. The expected limit from this Bayesian analysis is 5.7 TeV, comparable to the CLs+b expected limit. While the observed limit from CLs+b analysis is significantly higher than the Bayesian results, we have no basis on which to exclude the CLs+b result a posteriori."

Record Luminosity For LHC

Mar 23 2011 | comment(s)

This might become the title of a series of posts, much like my "say of the week" series. In fact, the Large Hadron Collider is back in operation since earlier this month, and the instantaneous luminosity at which it collides protons at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is going to keep gradually increasing, as better orbit parameters are found, more protons are injected in the machine, more bunches are made to circulate, and beams are squeezed in the surroundings of the experimental halls.

Still, it feels nice to report that the value of L = 2.4E32 cm^-2 s^-1 has been now achieved, a full 20% more than the highest number recorded in the 2010 running.

CPT Violation In The Top Quark Mass ?

Mar 17 2011 | comment(s)

The CDF collaboration sent to the preprint arxiv a new paper a few days ago. In it, they report on a measurement of the mass difference of top and anti-top quarks. The result would not be worth discussing in detail, if it did not show a 2-sigma discrepancy which might be the first hint of a CPT violation. So let me discuss it here.

Interesting Talks From NEUTEL11

Mar 16 2011 | comment(s)

My blogging output here is scarce this week, because I am spending my time at the NEUTEL 2011 conference in Venice. I am producing some posts summarizing the talks I hear at the conference, together with a few colleagues. Our blog there will be short-lived, but already collects about 1000 views a day, growing by the day. Here is a selection of recent posts you can find -I only list here those published today or yesterday:

NEUTEL Started!

Mar 15 2011 | comment(s)

The NEUTEL 2011 conference started today in Venice. Many experiments in neutrino physics will be reporting new results there, and the interest is of course high in the community. Along with a few vailant physicists from my university, I will be blogging form the site, trying to cover all the important new information as well as some other information in general. So please visit the NEUTEL11 blog to learn the latest news on neutrino physics... Already there is a report on a general overview of neutrino oscillations by Art McDonald, among with additional posts on HEP results.

New Higgs Limits From The Tevatron... New?

Mar 14 2011 | comment(s)

... Not really.

What startled me most was that a colleague of mine at the University of Padova even sent a message to my departments' mailing list, saying that the new result is very important. But it clearly isn't! In fact, the exclusion at 95% CL in the range of Higgs boson masses that CDF and DZERO could put together from the analysis of additional data is almost exactly the same as the one that they published last Summer.

But maybe I should make a step back and explain the matter from the start, to let you judge by yourself the relevance of the new Tevatron bounds on the rate of Higgs boson production in proton-antiproton collisions.

CDF and DZERO are analyzing the proton-antiproton collisions at 2 TeV that the Tevatron collider is producing since 2001.