Assessment of Modern Statistical Modelling Methods for the Association of High-Energy Neutrinos to Astrophysical Sources

Sammanfattning: The search for the sources of astrophysical neutrinos is a central open question in particle astrophysics. Thanks to substantial experimental efforts, we now have large-scale neutrino detectors in the oceans and polar ice. The neutrino sky seems mostly isotropic, but hints of possible source-neutrino associations have started to emerge, leading to much excitement within the astrophysics community. As more data are collected and future experiments planned, the question of how to statistically quantify point source detection in a robust way becomes increasingly pertinent. The standard approach to null-hypothesis testing leads to reporting the results in terms of a p-value, with detection typically corresponding to surpassing the coveted 5-sigma threshold. While widely used, p-values and significance thresholds are notorious in the statistical community as challenging to interpret and potentially misleading. We explore an alternative Bayesian approach to reporting point source detection and the connections and differences with the frequentist view. In this thesis, two methods for associating neutrino events to candidate sources are implemented on data from a simplified simulation of high-energy neutrino generation and detection. One is a maximum likelihood-based method that has been used in some high-profile articles, and the alternative uses Bayesian Hierarchical modelling with Hamiltonian Monte Carlo to sample the joint posterior of key parameters. Both methods are applied to a set of test cases to gauge their differences and similarities when applied on identical data. The comparisons suggest the applicability of this Bayesian approach as alternative or complement to the frequentist, and illustrate how the two approaches differ. A discussion is also conducted on the applicability and validity of the study itself as well as some potential benefits of incorporating a Bayesian framework, with suggestions for additional aspects to analyze.