BibTeX

@article{2508.10988v1,
Author        = {Arindam Bhattacharya and Katherine Fraser and Matthew D. Schwartz},
Title         = {Observable Optimization for Precision Theory: Machine Learning Energy
  Correlators},
Eprint        = {2508.10988v1},
ArchivePrefix = {arXiv},
PrimaryClass  = {hep-ph},
Abstract      = {The practice of collider physics typically involves the marginalization of
multi-dimensional collider data to uni-dimensional observables relevant for
some physics task. In any cases, such as classification or anomaly detection,
the observable can be arbitrarily complicated, such as the output of a neural
network. However, for precision measurements, the observable must correspond to
something computable systematically beyond the level of current simulation
tools. In this work, we demonstrate that precision-theory-compatible observable
space exploration can be systematized by using neural simulation-based
inference techniques from machine learning. We illustrate this approach by
exploring the space of marginalizations of the energy 3-point correlator to
optimize sensitivity to the the top quark mass. We first learn the
energy-weighted probability density from simulation, then search in the space
of marginalizations for an optimal triangle shape. Although simulations and
machine learning are used in the process of observable optimization, the output
is an observable definition which can be then computed to high precision and
compared directly to data without any memory of the computations which produced
it. We find that the optimal marginalization is isosceles triangles on the
sphere with a side ratio approximately $1:1:\sqrt{2}$ (i.e. right triangles)
within the set of marginalizations we consider.},
Year          = {2025},
Month         = {Aug},
Url           = {http://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10988v1},
File          = {2508.10988v1.pdf}
}