[Higgsbounds-announce] HiggsBounds 3.8.0: Including the Moriond 2012 results and a new model likeness test

[Tim Stefaniak]

***We'd like to announce the release of HiggsBounds version 3.8.0***

This release includes the most important Higgs search results from ATLAS, CMS, D0 and CDF as presented at the Moriond Conference 2012 in March. We apologize for the delayed release, however, your patience is compensated by a version featuring a revamped model-likeness test which significantly improves the performance of the program.

The model-likeness test of HiggsBounds figures out whether the user-provided model fulfills the underlying assumptions of a Higgs search and thus whether this search can be applied to the model. This becomes important in particular for analyses which combine various Higgs channels (i.e. production * decay) and thereby assume a Standard Model-like relation between the signal rates of the relevant channels.

The major improvement of the model-likeness test is the introduction of weights: The Higgs channels are now weighted by their relative contribution to the total signal rate in the Standard Model. The deviation of the SM-normalized signal rate of a channel with a low weight (i.e. with small contribution to the total signal rate in the SM) from the averaged normalized signal rate may now be larger than for channels with a higher weight. In practice, the improved test in particular enhances the applicability of SM combined analyses to non-SM Higgs sectors.

The improved test is now the default and thus supersedes the old (sometimes overly conservative) method. However, the old method can be restored by changing the logical parameter use_weight to False in S95tables.f90.

You can download the new version HiggsBounds 3.8.0 on our website http://higgsbounds.hepforge.org.

In case of questions, comments or feature requests, don't hesitate to contact us!

Best wishes,
    The HiggsBounds Team