Abstract

According to the hierarchy of models (HoM) account of scientific experimentation developed by Patrick Suppes and elaborated by Deborah Mayo, theoretical considerations about the phenomena of interest are involved in an experiment through theoretical models that in turn relate to experimental data through data models, via the linkage of experimental models. In this paper, I dispute the HoM account in the context of present-day high-energy physics (HEP) experiments. I argue that even though the HoM account aims to characterize experimentation as a model-based activity, it does not involve a modeling concept for the process of data acquisition, and it thus fails to provide a model-based characterization of the theory-experiment relationship underlying this process. In order to characterize the foregoing relationship, I propose the concept of a model of data acquisition and illustrate it in the case of the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. I show that the process of data acquisition in the ATLAS experiment is performed according to a model of data acquisition that specifies and organizes the experimental procedures necessary to select the data according to a predetermined set of selection criteria. I also point out that this data acquisition model is theory-laden, in the sense that the underlying data selection criteria are determined by considering the testable predictions of the theoretical models that the ATLAS experiment is aimed to test. I take this sense of theory-ladenness to indicate that the relationship between the procedures of the ATLAS experiment and the theoretical models of the phenomena of interest is first established, prior to the formation of data models, through the data acquisition model of the experiment, thus not requiring the intermediary of other types of models as suggested by the HoM account. I therefore conclude that in the context of present-day HEP experiments, the HoM account does not consistently extend to the process of data acquisition so as to include models of data acquisition.

Highlights

  • A scientific experiment consists of various stages ranging from the design and construction of experimental set-up and procedures to the acquisition and analysis of experimental data and the interpretation of experimental results

  • What types of selection signatures, namely, whether they are based on particles or jets or missing or total energy, are to be used is determined by considering the conclusions of the foregoing high-energy physics (HEP) models about the decay processes of their predicted particles, e.g., the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model (SM), and the aforementioned supersymmetric particles predicted by the minimal super-symmetric extension of the SM (MSSM)

  • The above considerations suggest that the testing of the SM Higgs boson hypothesis in the ATLAS experiment was driven by a statistical model of testing that prescribes how to analyze the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data, namely the sets of selected collision events, and put them into the data models, namely the invariant and transverse mass distributions, as well as how to extract from the latter the information regarding the extent of compatibility between the SM Higgs boson hypothesis and the foregoing data models

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Summary

Introduction

A scientific experiment consists of various stages ranging from the design and construction of experimental set-up and procedures to the acquisition and analysis of experimental data and the interpretation of experimental results. I will dispute the HoM account in the context of present-day highenergy physics experiments (HEP) To this end, I will present a case study that examines the process of data acquisition as well as the statistical testing of the Higgs boson hypothesis in the ATLAS1 experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 (ATLAS Collaboration 2012a). The present case study is aimed at elucidating the role of theoretical considerations in the production of experimental data in the context of present-day HEP experiments This is an important issue for the epistemology of scientific experimentation but has not yet received due attention from philosophers of science, while the relevant philosophical literature has so far largely focused on the role of theoretical considerations in the production and interpretation of experimental results..

Theory-experiment relationship according the HoM account
Determining data selection criteria in the ATLAS experiment
Modeling data acquisition in the ATLAS experiment
Conclusions
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