  This note describes an independent assessment of the statistical significance
of the recently released ATLAS and CMS data, about 11 fb-1 per experiment
acquired in 2011 and in the first part of 2012, for what concerns the Higgs
search in the two high resolution decay channels especially suited for the low
mass region, i.e. the diphoton and four-lepton decay channels. Scope of this
note is not to reproduce the analysis of the Collaborations: this would be
impossible given the enormous complexity of the complete profile likelihood
procedure used to evaluate local and global the p-values, and the huge number
of nuisance parameters which are used to incorporate the numerous systematic
effects. Rather, its purpose is to show the significance that an outsider can
infer only on the basis of the released data and plots, used as input of a
simplified profile likelihood procedure in which the only contemplated nuisance
parameter is the background normalization in the diphoton channel. In practice,
this note tries to address the question of the independent judgment of the
significance of new data that physicists are used to perform on their own when
they are shown for the first time particularly relevant results with indication
of new effects, and that in the complex LHC framework is not so easily doable
as in other experimental contexts.
