The Virtual Monte Carlo

The concept of Virtual Monte Carlo (VMC) has been developed by the ALICE Software Project to allow different Monte Carlo simulation programs to run without changing the user code, such as the geometry definition, the detector response simulation or input and output formats. Recently, the VMC classes have been integrated into the ROOT framework, and the other relevant packages have been separated from the AliRoot framework and can be used individually by any other HEP project. The general concept of the VMC and its set of base classes provided in ROOT will be presented. Existing implementations for Geant3, Geant4 and FLUKA and simple examples of usage will be described.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 8 pages, LaTeX, 6 eps figures. PSN THJT006. See http://root.cern.ch/root/vmc/VirtualMC.htm

Multilevel Richardson-Romberg extrapolation

We propose and analyze a Multilevel Richardson-Romberg (MLRR) estimator which combines the higher order bias cancellation of the Multistep Richardson-Romberg method introduced in [Pa07] and the variance control resulting from the stratification introduced in the Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) method (see [Hei01, Gi08]). Thus, in standard frameworks like discretization schemes of diffusion processes, the root mean squared error (RMSE) $\varepsilon > 0$ can be achieved with our MLRR estimator with a global complexity of $\varepsilon^{-2} \log(1/\varepsilon)$ instead of $\varepsilon^{-2} (\log(1/\varepsilon))^2$ with the standard MLMC method, at least when the weak error $\mathbf{E}[Y_h]-\mathbf{E}[Y_0]$ of the biased implemented estimator $Y_h$ can be expanded at any order in $h$ and $\|Y_h - Y_0\|_2 = O(h^{\frac{1}{2}})$. The MLRR estimator is then halfway between a regular MLMC and a virtual unbiased Monte Carlo. When the strong error $\|Y_h - Y_0\|_2 = O(h^{\frac{\beta}{2}})$, $\beta < 1$, the gain of MLRR over MLMC becomes even more striking. We carry out numerical simulations to compare these estimators in two settings: vanilla and path-dependent option pricing by Monte Carlo simulation and the less classical Nested Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: 38 page

Theoretical improvements for luminosity monitoring at low energies

A comparison of theoretical results on NNLO leptonic and hadronic corrections to Bhabha scattering with the Monte Carlo generator BabaYaga@NLO used at meson factories is given. Complete NLO virtual corrections to the $e^+e^- \to \mu^+ \mu^- \gamma$ process are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figs, presented by J.Gluza at Radcor 201

Radiation therapy calculations using an on-demand virtual cluster via cloud computing

Computer hardware costs are the limiting factor in producing highly accurate radiation dose calculations on convenient time scales. Because of this, large-scale, full Monte Carlo simulations and other resource intensive algorithms are often considered infeasible for clinical settings. The emerging cloud computing paradigm promises to fundamentally alter the economics of such calculations by providing relatively cheap, on-demand, pay-as-you-go computing resources over the Internet. We believe that cloud computing will usher in a new era, in which very large scale calculations will be routinely performed by clinics and researchers using cloud-based resources. In this research, several proof-of-concept radiation therapy calculations were successfully performed on a cloud-based virtual Monte Carlo cluster. Performance evaluations were made of a distributed processing framework developed specifically for this project. The expected 1/n performance was observed with some caveats. The economics of cloud-based virtual computing clusters versus traditional in-house hardware is also discussed. For most situations, cloud computing can provide a substantial cost savings for distributed calculations.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Radiative Corrections to High Energy Lepton Bremsstrahlung on Heavy Nuclei

One-loop radiative corrections to the leptonic tensor in high energy bremsstrahlung on heavy nuclei are calculated. Virtual and real photon radiation is taken into account. Double bremsstrahlung is simulated by means of Monte Carlo. Numerical results are presented for the case of muon bremsstrahlung in conditions of the COMPASS experiment at CERN.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Forward hadron production in ultraperipheral proton-heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and RHIC

We discuss hadron production in the forward rapidity region in ultraperipheral proton-lead collisions at the LHC and proton-gold collisions at RHIC. Our discussion is based on the Monte Carlo simulations of the interactions of virtual photons emitted by a fast moving nucleus with a proton beam. We simulate the virtual photon flux with the STARLIGHT event generator and then particle production with the SOPHIA, DPMJET, and PYTHIA event generators. We show the rapidity distributions of charged and neutral particles, and the momentum distributions of neutral pions and neutrons at forward rapidities. According to the Monte Carlo simulations, we find large cross sections of ultraperipheral collisions for particle production especially in the very forward region, leading to substantial background contributions to investigations of collective nuclear effects and spin physics. Finally we can distinguish between proton-nucleus inelastic interactions and ultraperipheral collisions with additional requirements of either of the charged particles at midrapidity and a certain level of activities at negative forward rapidity.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 2 tabl

Forward Jet Production at HERA

We discuss forward jet production data recently published by the H1 and ZEUS collaborations at HERA. We review how several Monte-Carlo models compare to the data. QCD calculations based on the BFKL formalism and on fixed NLO perturbation theory with and without resolved virtual photons are described.Comment: 10 pages, 4 eps figures; talk given at the Ringberg Workshop 'New Trends in HERA Physics 1999

The radiative return at small angles: virtual corrections

Virtual corrections for electron--positron annihilation into one real and one off-shell photon of invariant mass Q^2 are evaluated. Special attention is paid to those configurations where the real photon is collinear with the beam direction. This calculation is an important ingredient of a Monte Carlo program, which simulates events with tagged photons from initial-state radiation, including NLO corrections.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure