Examining the Balance Between Optimising an Analysis for Best Limit Setting and Best Discovery Potential

Transient neutrino emission from the Galactic center studied by ANTARES

“…Consequently, the same quality cut is used for runs subject to similar data taking conditions. The neutrino candidate rate was chosen according to a Model Discovery Potential (MDP -see [6]) optimization, varying the cut on Λ in the sub-sample of MR related to the best data taking conditions (50 kHz < MR < 100 kHz). The expected signal used in the MDP optimization was defined as the last estimation of the diffuse IceCube astrophysical neutrino spectrum: Φ ν = 2.06…”

KM3NeT/ARCA sensitivity and discovery potential for neutrino point-like sources

“…5 or 3 ) with 50% probability [16], has been taken as a figure of merit of the telescope performance. The method used considers two hypotheses: the hypothesis that data consist only of background and the hypothesis that signal events are present in the data in addition to the background.…”

Performance studies for the KM3NeT Neutrino Telescope

“…The discovery potential of a detector can be determined by calculating the "least detectable signal" µ lds (n bkg ), assuming a given number of background events according to [113]: given an expected number of background events n bkg , the Poissonian probability of observing more than a certain number of events P (≥ n obs |n bkg ) can be calculated. In case this number is very small, e.g.…”

“…90%)? The answer to the first question yields the detector's discovery potential [113], whereas the second question leads to the detector's sensitivity [114].…”