Last updated: October 26, 2000

For the measurement of Ns signals in N events rigorous confidence bounds on the true signal probability were established in a classical paper by Clopper and Pearson [Biometrica 26, 404 (1934)]. Here, their bounds are generalized to the HEP situation where cuts on the data tag signals with probability (efficiency) Ps and background data with a smaller likelihood Pb. In particular, the method is expected to be of interest in connection with the statistical analysis part of the ongoing Higgs search at the LEP experiments. If you are interested in further details, read the following paper:

hep-ex/0010061 (based on a contribution to the ACAT200 workshop.)
The Fortran programs which produce the results of the paper can be downloaded from the following website: (you are strongly advised to read and understand the paper first)

Fortran Programs.

Note that the Fortran programs available here can only deal with small data sets (see the readme.txt file), because the decisive convolution is not calculated via (fast) Fourier transformation. E-mail berg@hep.fsu.edu if you need a program which can deal with large data sets.