The Higgs boson machine learning challenge

The Higgs Boson Machine Learning Challenge (HiggsML or the Challenge for short) was organized to promote collaboration between high energy physicists and data scientists. The ATLAS experiment at CERN provided simulated data that has been used by physicists in a search for the Higgs boson. The Challenge was organized by a small group of ATLAS physicists and data scientists. It was hosted by Kaggle at https://www.kaggle. com/c/higgs-boson; the challenge data is now available on http://opendata.cern.ch/ collection/ATLAS-Higgs-Challenge-2014. This paper provides the physics background and explains the challenge setting, the challenge design, and analyzes its results.