DOE OSTI · 2955157
Methods for a blind analysis of isobar data collected by the STAR collaboration
Abstract
In 2018, the STAR collaboration collected data from $_{44}^{96}{\mathrm{Ru}}+_{44}^{96}{\mathrm{Ru}}$ and $_{40}^{96}{\mathrm{Zr}}+_{40}^{96}{\mathrm{Zr}}$ at $\sqrt{s_\text {NN}}=200$ GeV to search for the presence of the chiral magnetic effect in collisions of nuclei. The isobar collision species alternated frequently between $_{44}^{96}{\mathrm{Ru}}+_{44}^{96}{\mathrm{Ru}}$ and $_{40}^{96}{\mathrm{Zr}}+_{40}^{96}{\mathrm{Zr}}$ . In order to conduct blind analyses of studies related to the chiral magnetic effect in these isobar data, STAR developed a three-step blind analysis procedure. Analysts are initially provided a “reference sample” of data, comprised of a mix of events from the two species, the order of which respects time-dependent changes in run conditions. After tuning analysis codes and performing time-dependent quality assurance on the reference sample, analysts are provided a species-blind sample suitable for calculating efficiencies and corrections for individual $\approx 30$-min data-taking runs. For this sample, species-specific information is disguised, but individual output files contain data from a single isobar species. Only run-by-run corrections and code alteration subsequent to these corrections are allowed at this stage. Following these modifications, the “frozen” code is passed over the fully un-blind data, completing the blind analysis. As a check of the feasibility of the blind analysis procedure, analysts completed a “mock data challenge,” analyzing data from Au + Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\text {NN}}=27$ GeV, collected in 2018. The Au + Au data were prepared in the same manner intended for the isobar blind data. Finally, the details of the blind analysis procedure and results from the mock data challenge are presented.
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Adam, J., Adamczyk, L., Adams, J. R., Adkins, J. K., Agakishiev, G., Aggarwal, M. M., Ahammed, Z., Alekseev, I., Anderson, D. M., Aparin, A., Aschenauer, E. C., Ashraf, M. U., Atetalla, F. G., Attri, A., Averichev, G. S., Bairathi, V., Barish, K., Behera, A., Bellwied, R., Bhasin, A., Bielcik, J., Bielcikova, J., Bland, L. C., Bordyuzhin, I. G., Brandenburg, J. D., Brandin, A. V., Butterworth, J., Caines, H., de la Barca Sánchez, M. Calderón, Cebra, D., Chakaberia, I., Chaloupka, P., Chan, B. K., Chang, F-H., Chang, Z., Chankova-Bunzarova, N., Chatterjee, A., Chen, D., Chen, J., Chen, J. H., Chen, X., Chen, Z., Cheng, J., Cherney, M., Chevalier, M., Choudhury, S., Christie, W., Chu, X., Crawford, H. J., Csanád, M., Daugherity, M., Dedovich, T. G., Deppner, I. M., Derevschikov, A. A., Didenko, L., Dong, X., Drachenberg, J. L., Dunlop, J. C., Edmonds, T., Elsey, N., Engelage, J., Eppley, G., Esumi, S., Evdokimov, O., Ewigleben, A., Eyser, O., Fatemi, R., Fazio, S., Federic, P., Fedorisin, J., Feng, C. J., Feng, Y., Filip, P., Finch, E., Fisyak, Y., Francisco, A., Fulek, L., Gagliardi, C. A., Galatyuk, T., Geurts, F., Gibson, A., Gopal, K., Gou, X., Grosnick, D., Guryn, W., Hamad, A. I., Hamed, A., Harabasz, S., Harris, J. W., He, S., He, W., He, X. H., He, Y., Heppelmann, S., Herrmann, N., Hoffman, E., Holub, L., Hong, Y., Horvat, S., Hu, Y.. 2021-05-12. Methods for a blind analysis of isobar data collected by the STAR collaboration. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-021-00878-y
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