Re: updated systematics table

[Tom Banks <tbanks@socrates.berkeley.edu>]

> Tom and Steve presented an updated systematics table at the
> unblinding meeting. I think, Fred updated his error estimates
> based on his recent work.
>
> It is important for the collaboration to step through these
> tables with great care.  Before doing that, I would like to ask you,
> what is the latest update on that.  Should I just take the tables
> presented and check in the analysis report for the sources of these
> numbers?
>
> Or are you planning an updated summary with either a short
> discussion of the source for each number or simply a
> reference to a page on your analysis report?

My plan was to soon provide a very short note containing the final values
and updated errors for each step in the sequence leading to my value for
Lambda_S--which is part of the reason why I have recently been working on
finalizing the numbers in the high-Z and ppmu corrections.  However, I
don't forsee any adjustments larger than +- 1 Hz from the results I gave
at the unblinding meeting, so (in my case) I think it will be sufficient
at each stage to just provide an equation and the numbers used, and
perhaps a reference to the relevant section in the unblinding report.
That way, if there are any questions about what I'm doing, people can
refer back to the unblinding report for more complete descriptions.

A far more important question, I believe, is deciding when this Run8
analysis is "done."  The truth is, we are not going to resolve all of
these outstanding questions in the coming month:

  1. What is magnitude of possible CAEN effects?
  2. Why the larger-than-expected rate discrepancies between
     no-impact/120-mm impact cuts?
  3. Why the larger-than-statistical rate discrepancies between
     cathode-AND/OR treatments in the Berkeley analysis?
  4. High-Z stuff: Impurity composition?  Detection efficiencies?  Why
     poor fits to time distributions of impurity captures?
  5. Illinois: refinements to scatter correction.

In fact, I doubt that *any* of these questions will be answered in the
next couple months.  After all, it has already been two months since the
unblinding meeting, and nothing new has been discovered.  The question is
then: Is it acceptable to proceed with publication while these remain
unanswered?  We need to decide as a collaboration how much longer we
intend to wait on open-ended refinements to the analysis.  We should
either (1) proceed with immediate (i.e December/January) publication and
blow up the errors on the existing results until people are happy, or (2)
be candid about what problems are showstoppers, what needs to be done to
consider them "solved," and how much time that will require.

Sincerely,
Tom