Recasting the ATLAS search for displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS calorimeter with additional jets or leptons using surrogate models

Abstract This note describes the validation of a new form of re-interpretation material provided by an ATLAS search for hadronically-decaying neutral long-lived particles in association with jets or leptons, using the full Run-2 dataset. This reference ATLAS analysis provided a set of machine-learning-based “surrogate models” which return the probability of an event being selected in a given channel of the analysis, using as input truth-level kinematic information (decay position, transverse momentum and decay products of the long-lived particles). In this document, we describe the surrogate model framework in detail, and how it responds to issues identified in other re-interpretation procedures. We describe independent validations of the surrogate models’ performance in reproducing the original analysis results – first using a stand-alone framework and then employing the HackAnalysis framework.