Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your thoughtful review of our paper.  We've done our best to incorporate changes to address all of your comments in the newest draft of the paper.  Please find below responses item-by-item, marked with ---> .

Cheers,
The authors

Reviewer #3: 
Manuscript Summary: 
The authors describe a technique to use "simplified models" to set limits on a new physics model. MSUGRA is used as a test case and the limits calculated by the method are compared against the limits published for this particular model.

Major Concerns:
-> something has gone in the production of the pdf provided to the reviewer: the numbers of the figures do not match the content of the caption (or their reference) with the exception of Figures 10 and 11. This makes it extremely hard to understand the paper. 

---> We agree and apologize.  These appear to be relics of the difference between the formats the authors are familiar with and the journal requires.  We have tried to repair these.

-> There are several assumptions on epsilon*A (e.g. L103, L112, L117). This should be quantified (=proven) as the authors have the machinery at hand to do so.

---> This is indeed what the "example application" attempts to do.  We prefer not to anticipate the discussion too much.

-> L103: deducing associated production A*eps from the "pair production" models should be quantified. While a common i ensures that the final state looks similar, what about the production? In particular: if the SMs have s-channels, an associated production could have a t channel contribution which could change kinematics as function of the mass of the a and b particle. 

---> Again, we believe that the example application follows these through, and we hope that it becomes more clear how the different assumptions affect the limits when looking at this concrete example.  

-> The train from Eq.1 to Eq.5 is very hard to follow. While Eq.1 looks ok, Eq.5 seems hard to understand.

---> The trend is meant to be towards increasingly bold assumptions about the acceptance and efficiency of the models, and thus towards increasingly aggressive limits.  Of course we agree with you that at some point the limits become too aggressive and over-estimate the actual limit set by the analyses.  This is what is shown in the final section, in fact: that the most aggressive set of assumptions is too aggressive, that the most conservative is too conservative, and that the truth lies somewhere in between.

Example: there is only 1 SM: in that case the fourth factor would reduce to one, even if the production fraction of the SM is 10%. Further assuming BR=100% for simplicity, Eq. 1 and Eq 5 would differ by a factor 0.1. 
Eq 1: sigma *L*A*eps *Paa
Eq 2: sigma *L*A*eps * Paa/Paa * 1/1
so something in the meaning of the indices or the sums is not clear: L80 defines sigma_tot as the NPM cross section, so if there is only a single SM which corresponds to 10% of the total cross section, Eq.5 does not seem to be correct. 
L110 is also very confusing. 

---> By the time Equation 5 is applied, the limit produced is likely somewhat too aggressive (confirmed later in the limit figures).  As you point out, in simple cases the limit set by equation 1 and equation 5 differ significantly - the effect is that the limit set by equation 1 makes very few assumptions about the mapping of acceptance and efficiency of simplified models to other events, and equation 5 assumes that all events in your BSM model are well represented by what ever simplified models you have chosen.  For a small list of simplified models and a complex theory, this assumption breaks down, as you point out.  However, what we've found is that a surprisingly small list of simplified models are able to represent a fairly diverse range of BSM models - one does not in fact need to create an infinite (or even very long) list.  This is why we attempt to provide guidance in choosing the dictionary of simplified models that one should begin with: without an appropriate choice, the limit given by equations 1 and 5 are dramatically different, which itself is an indication that the dictionary of simplified models chosen is inappropriate.

---> These are certainly not simply a re-writing of the same equation - they each represent different assumptions about how well the acceptance and efficiency of the simplified model events represent the acceptance and efficiency of the full SUSY (or BSM) model.

---> If you have any concrete suggestions for how we might make this more clear, we would welcome them!

-> L174: justify the 50%.

---> Done.

Minor Concerns:
The abstract needs to be revisited:
-> why are simplified models more phenomenological, when they in fact correspond to arbitrary choices on branching ratios?

---> One of the beauties of simplified models, we think, is that they correspond to no choice of branching ratio.  We often see lines drawn on them that correspond to arbitrary choices, it is true, but the most important part of the limit is the excluded cross-section at any given point, which should be applicable to almost any model with the right mass spectrum (with some caveats about the manner in which the limit is set).

-> what is meant by "clearer physical implications"? The MSUGRA is well defined and has a clear physical implication for the calculation of masses, branching ratios etc. What is the added value of a simplified model?

---> We have changed "implications" to "interpretations."  Too often one hears a person explain that "CMS has excluded gluinos below 1000 GeV" by looking at a plot of MSUGRA, when in fact this corresponds (as you say!) to a very specific set of masses and branching fractions.  That is often a best case - too often we see a plot of MSUGRA against m0 and m1/2, two GUT scale parameters from which physically observable parameters must be derived.  In the case of simplified models, on the other hand, an upper cross section limit (these are the limits of simplified models, as we've mentioned above, not the lines on the excluded cross section plots, which we agree are not terribly physical) does correspond to a generic limit on a mass times branching fraction.  The limits are also presented in terms of physical masses and branching fractions, which we believe is a significant step forward from MSUGRA.

-> "direct searches" would imply dedicated analyses for MSUGRA parameter sets/points. Or do the authors rather mean "limits calculated by ATLAS/CMS"?

---> We agree this was unclear.  We have changed it to read "that have not yet been examined by the LHC experiments," which we think was closer to what we meant.

-> L41 "any" is the statement also true for the production of sleptons? 

---> As it appears that ATLAS and CMS now include simplified models with sleptons as well, we are pleased to be able to say "yes."

-> L62: constituent could be defined here.

---> Done

-> L203: Discrepancies..... is that true independent of the mass of the new particle? when approaching the kinematical limit due to the PDF of the proton, isn't the dependence sharper than far away? 

---> In fact the limits on almost all new physics models do not approach the kinematic limit of the LHC from PDFs.  They tend, even after the latest run, to be down by more than a factor of two, and sometimes more.  It is partially the PDF that contributes to making the cross-section rapidly falling - but as the cross section falls more steeply against mass, 15% variations in acceptance matter less.  

---> In an extreme case, imagine a very hard cut off at 4 TeV.  Say also, for example, that the cross section falls by an order of magnitude between 3.99 TeV and 4 TeV.  Then a 15% error on acceptance times efficiency, which will likely lead to a roughly 15% error in excluded cross-section times branching fraction, will only impact the limit on the level of 1 GeV.  The faster the cross section falls, the less a 10-15% error on acceptance times efficiency will matter when mass limits are the figure of merit.

-> There are white squares in some of the figures of R(sq sq) plane?

---> These models had no events described by simplified models, up to the Monte Carlo statistics that we produced for this particular grid.  We have noted this in the caption.

L294: "indication": shouldn't you be able to know this fraction from your Madgraph+PGS machinery? 

---> Indeed - and it is high.  We've changed this to "confirmation".

L334: "unnecessary": This is quite a strong statement. I would have thought that when mchargino gets close to mLSP, the efficiency will vary strongly. Which points have been simulated with PGS to analyze the dependence? 

---> We agree, of course, that the efficiency varies strongly.  The point is that as the chargino gets very close to the LSP, decay chains prefer to not include the chargino and jump straight to the LSP - particularly those decay chains that are being selected by the LHC analyses.  That is why we say they are unnecessary.

Additional Comments to Authors:
N/A