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Toponium Found By CMS!

The highest-mass subnuclear particle ever observed used to the the top quark. Measured for the...

The Problem With Peer Review

In a world where misinformation, voluntary or accidental, reigns supreme; in a world where lies...

Interna

In the past few years my activities on this site - but I would say more in general, as the same...

The Probability Density Function: A Known Unknown

Perhaps the most important thing to get right from the start, in most statistical problems, is...

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Tommaso DorigoRSS Feed of this column.

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 »

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Two Standard Deviations From Tevatron Results Of Bs Mesons

Two Standard Deviations From Tevatron Results Of Bs Mesons

Jul 26 2009 | comment(s)

One year ago, a paper by a distinguished group of theorists announced first evidence of new physics from measurements of the properties of B_s mesons performed at the Tevatron by the CDF and DZERO experiments. They had combined all the available information, obtaining a result which disagreed with the Standard Model (SM) prediction by more than three standard deviations.
Frankly Embarassing

Frankly Embarassing

Jul 25 2009 | comment(s)

The happy nights of Italy's Premier Silvio Berlusconi, now documented in hot recordings taken by Escort Patrizia D'Addario, have by now circled the free world (in Italy they are only available to readers of a couple of newspapers allegedly "hostile to the government", Repubblica and L'Espresso).
Will The Standard Model Die By The Hands Of Its Dearest Child ?

Will The Standard Model Die By The Hands Of Its Dearest Child ?

Jul 23 2009 | comment(s)

A new paper on the ArXiV caught my attention this evening for several reasons. First of all, because two of its five authors (J.Ellis, J.R.Espinosa, G.F.Giudice, A.Hoecker, and A.Riotto) are (or have been) my colleagues in Padova University; second, because the title is quite catchy; third, because indeed the results it presents are valuable food for thought.
The Say of the Week

The Say of the Week

Jul 23 2009 | comment(s)

"Other people's data ntuples are a bit like their genitals. You may occasionally be allowed to play with them, but you should not expect to be granted unhindered access."

Unknown (the previous attribution to M. F. is fallacious)
B-Quark Jets: Keys To New Discoveries

B-Quark Jets: Keys To New Discoveries

Jul 22 2009 | comment(s)

In this two-parts article I wish to describe in some detail, but still at an elementary level, the characteristics of one of the most important probes of the physics of subnuclear collisions at today's particle physics experiments: jets of hadrons originated from energetic bottom quarks, or more familiarly, b-jets. By posting a dedicated article on b-jets, I hope I will be able to describe in more detail elsewhere other physics topics, such as Higgs boson decays or top quark signatures, without being hampered by having to introduce the phenomenology and detection of b-jets from scratch every time.


The Nuts And Bolts Of The

The Nuts And Bolts Of The "Nail The Higgs Down" Plot

Jul 20 2009 | comment(s)

As silly as it may look, I am going to start this post by publishing for the third time in a row the same figure. That is because I want to keep the promise I made earlier that I would explain in terms as simple as possible (although not simpler) the details hidden behind the coloured curves and functions pictured there. I will also take this chance to come down a little from the level of technicality of the recent posts: after all, this blog is supposedly for everybody, and not just for Ph.D. students and recipients.