Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Unweighting multijet event generation using factorisation-aware neural networks

  Timo Janßen, Daniel Maître, Steffen Schumann, Frank Siegert, Henry Truong

  SciPost Phys. 15, 107 (2023) · published 21 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this article we combine a recently proposed method for factorisation-aware matrix element surrogates with an unbiased unweighting algorithm. We show that employing a sophisticated neural network emulation of QCD multijet matrix elements based on dipole factorisation can lead to a drastic acceleration of unweighted event generation. We train neural networks for a selection of partonic channels contributing at the tree-level to $Z+4,5$ jets and $t\bar{t}+3,4$ jets production at the LHC which necessitates a generalisation of the dipole emulation model to include initial state partons as well as massive final state quarks. We also present first steps towards the emulation of colour-sampled amplitudes. We incorporate these emulations as fast and accurate surrogates in a two-stage rejection sampling algorithm within the SHERPA Monte Carlo that yields unbiased unweighted events suitable for phenomenological analyses and post-processing in experimental workflows, e.g. as input to a time-consuming detector simulation. For the computational cost of unweighted events we achieve a reduction by factors between $16$ and $350$ for the considered channels.

  6 citations

• OASIS: Optimal Analysis-Specific Importance Sampling for event generation

  Konstantin T. Matchev, Prasanth Shyamsundar

  SciPost Phys. 10, 034 (2021) · published 15 February 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose a technique called Optimal Analysis-Specific Importance Sampling (OASIS) to reduce the number of simulated events required for a high-energy experimental analysis to reach a target sensitivity. We provide recipes to obtain the optimal sampling distributions which preferentially focus the event generation on the regions of phase space with high utility to the experimental analyses. OASIS leads to a conservation of resources at all stages of the Monte Carlo pipeline, including full-detector simulation, and is complementary to approaches which seek to speed-up the simulation pipeline.

  6 citations

• CaloFlow for CaloChallenge dataset 1

  Claudius Krause, Ian Pang, David Shih

  SciPost Phys. 16, 126 (2024) · published 15 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  CALOFLOW is a new and promising approach to fast calorimeter simulation based on normalizing flows. Applying CALOFLOW to the photon and charged pion ≥ant showers of Dataset 1 of the Fast Calorimeter Simulation Challenge 2022, we show how it can produce high-fidelity samples with a sampling time that is several orders of magnitude faster than ≥ant. We demonstrate the fidelity of the samples using calorimeter shower images, histograms of high level features, and aggregate metrics such as a classifier trained to distinguish CALOFLOW from ≥ant samples.

  5 citations

• Ground-state phase diagram of quantum link electrodynamics in $(2+1)$-d

  Tomohiro Hashizume, Jad C. Halimeh, Philipp Hauke, Debasish Banerjee

  SciPost Phys. 13, 017 (2022) · published 12 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The exploration of phase diagrams of strongly interacting gauge theories coupled to matter in lower dimensions promises the identification of exotic phases and possible new universality classes, and it facilitates a better understanding of salient phenomena in Nature, such as confinement or high-temperature superconductivity. The emerging new techniques of quantum synthetic matter experiments as well as efficient classical computational methods with matrix product states have been extremely successful in one spatial dimension, and are now motivating such studies in two spatial dimensions. In this work, we consider a $\mathrm{U}(1)$ quantum link lattice gauge theory where the gauge fields, represented by spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ operators are coupled to a single flavor of staggered fermions. Using matrix product states on infinite cylinders with increasing diameter, we conjecture its phase diagram in $(2+1)$-d. This model allows us to smoothly tune between the $\mathrm{U}(1)$ quantum link and the quantum dimer models by adjusting the strength of the fermion mass term, enabling us to connect to the well-studied phases of those models. Our study reveals a rich phase diagram with exotic phases and interesting phase transitions to a potential liquid-like phase. It thus furthers the collection of gauge theory models that may guide future quantum-simulation experiments.

  5 citations

• pyBumpHunter: A model independent bump hunting tool in Python for high energy physics analyses

  Louis Vaslin, Samuel Calvet, Vincent Barra, Julien Donini

  SciPost Phys. Codebases 15 (2023) · published 14 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The BumpHunter algorithm is widely used in the search for new particles in High Energy Physics analysis. This algorithm offers the advantage of evaluating the local and global p-values of a localized deviation in the observed data without making any hypothesis on the supposed signal. The increasing popularity of the Python programming language motivated the development of a new public implementation of this algorithm in Python, called pyBumpHunter, together with several improvements and additional features. It is the first public implementation of the BumpHunter algorithm to be added to Scikit-HEP. This paper presents in detail the BumpHunter algorithm as well as all the features proposed in this implementation. All these features have been tested in order to demonstrate their behaviour and performance.

  5 citations

• Searching for muon to electron conversion: The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab

  Richard Bonventre on behalf of the Mu2e Collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 038 (2019) · published 21 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Mu2e experiment will measure the charged-lepton flavor violating (CLFV) neutrino-less conversion of a negative muon into an electron in the field of a nucleus. Mu2e will improve the previous measurement by four orders of magnitude, reaching a 90% C.L. limit of $8\times10^{-17}$ on the conversion rate. The experiment will reach mass scales of nearly $10^4$ TeV, far beyond the direct reach of colliders. The experiment is sensitive to a wide range of new physics, complementing and extending other CLFV searches. Mu2e is under design and construction at the Muon Campus of Fermilab; we expect to start taking physics data in 2022 with 3 years of running to achieve our target sensitivity.

  4 citations

• Strength in numbers: Optimal and scalable combination of LHC new-physics searches

  Jack Y. Araz, Andy Buckley, Benjamin Fuks, Humberto Reyes-Gonzalez, Wolfgang Waltenberger, Sophie L. Williamson, Jamie Yellen

  SciPost Phys. 14, 077 (2023) · published 20 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  To gain a comprehensive view of what the LHC tells us about physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), it is crucial that different BSM-sensitive analyses can be combined. But in general search-analyses are not statistically orthogonal, so performing comprehensive combinations requires knowledge of the extent to which the same events co-populate multiple analyses' signal regions. We present a novel, stochastic method to determine this degree of overlap, and a graph algorithm to efficiently find the combination of signal regions with no mutual overlap that optimises expected upper limits on BSM-model cross-sections. The gain in exclusion power relative to single-analysis limits is demonstrated with models with varying degrees of complexity, ranging from simplified models to a 19-dimensional supersymmetric model.

  4 citations

• HFLAV $τ$ branching fractions fit and measurements of Vus with $τ$ lepton data

  Alberto Lusiani

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 001 (2019) · published 18 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We report the status of the Heavy Flavour Averaging Group (HFLAV) averages of the $\tau$ lepton measurements We then update the latest published HFLAV global fit of the $\tau$ lepton branching fractions (Spring 2017) with recent results by BABAR. We use the fit results to update the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element Vus measurements with the $\tau$ branching fractions. We combine the direct $\tau$ branching fraction measurements with indirect predictions using kaon branching fractions measurements to improve the determination of Vus using $\tau$ branching fractions. The Vus determinations based on the inclusive branching fraction of $\tau$ to strange final states are about $3\sigma$ lower than the Vus determination from the CKM matrix unitarity.

  4 citations

• BROOD: Bilevel and Robust Optimization and Outlier Detection for Efficient Tuning of High-Energy Physics Event Generators

  Wenjing Wang, Mohan Krishnamoorthy, Juliane Muller, Stephen Mrenna, Holger Schulz, Xiangyang Ju, Sven Leyffer, Zachary Marshall

  SciPost Phys. Core 5, 001 (2022) · published 17 January 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The parameters in Monte Carlo (MC) event generators are tuned on experimental measurements by evaluating the goodness of fit between the data and the MC predictions. The relative importance of each measurement is adjusted manually in an often time-consuming, iterative process to meet different experimental needs. In this work, we introduce several optimization formulations and algorithms with new decision criteria for streamlining and automating this process. These algorithms are designed for two formulations: bilevel optimization and robust optimization. Both formulations are applied to the datasets used in the ATLAS A14 tune and to the dedicated hadronization datasets generated by the Sherpa generator, respectively. The corresponding tuned generator parameters are compared using three metrics. We compare the quality of our automatic tunes to the published ATLAS A14 tune. Moreover, we analyze the impact of a pre-processing step that excludes data that cannot be described by the physics models used in the MC event generators.

  4 citations

• MEG: Muon to Electron and Gamma

  A.M. Baldini, T. Mori

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 5, 019 (2021) · published 6 September 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The possible existence of the muon to electron and gamma decay predicted by many new physics scenarios is investigated by stopping positive muons in a very thin target and measuring emitted photons and positrons with the best possible resolutions. Photons are measured by a 2.7 ton ultra pure liquid xenon detector while positron trajectories are measured in a specially designed gradient magnetic field by low-mass drift chambers and precisely timed by scintillation counters. A first phase of the experiment (MEG) ended in 2016, and excluded the existence of the decay with branching ratios larger than 4.2x10**(-13) (90% C.L.). This provides approximately 30 times stronger constraints on a variety of new physics models than previous experiments. In the second phase (MEG II), most of the detectors have been upgraded by adopting up-to-date technologies to improve the search sensitivity by another order of magnitude down to O(10**(-19) ). MEG II will pursue new physics beyond the Standard Model complementary to high energy collider experiments with a compatible or even higher sensitivity.

  3 citations