Optimization of Signal Region for Dark Matter Search at the ATLAS Detector

This report focused on the optimization of signal region for the search of dark matter produced in proton-proton collision with final states of a single electron or muon, a minimum of four jets, one or two b-jets, and missing transverse momentum at least 100 GeV. A brute-force approach was proposed to scan for the optimal signal region in rectangularly discretized parameter space. Analysis of the leniency of signal regions motivated event-shortlisting and loop-breaking features that allowed efficient optimization of the signal region. With the refined algorithm for the brute-force search, the computation time slimmed from an estimation of three months to one hour, in a test run of a million Monte-Carlo simulated events over densely discretized parameter space of four million signal regions. Further studies could focus on manipulating random numbers, and the interplay between the maximal figure of merit and the lower bound imposed on the background.