Practical statistics and data analysis

Notes for the statistics refresh lectures of the Nuclear and Sub-Nucleare Measurements Laboratory Course

Objectives

The goals of these lectures are:

  • Refresh key concepts of probability and statistics
  • Familiarize with common numerical methods and software tools for data analysis in nuclear and particle physics

Quite often physicists learn the basics of statistics in their very first year of classes, and yet they may come to appreciate what really means to “fit” some data with a certain model (or even what “model” really means) only years later. I find myself periodically revising the basics of statistics and data analysis, hopefully you will find this useful too.

All exercises and examples are available in this GitHub repository.

Content

  • Lecture 0: Data analysis bootcamp: concepts, philosophy and tools

References

Probability and Statistics

Tools