CEDAR: tools for event generator tuning

I describe the work of the CEDAR collaboration in developing tools for tuning and validating Monte Carlo event generator programs. The core CEDAR task is to interface the Durham HepData database of experimental measurements to event generator validation tools such as the UCL JetWeb system - this has necessitated the migration of HepData to a new relational database system and a Java-based interaction model. The "number crunching" part of JetWeb is also being upgraded, from the Fortran HZTool library to the new C++ Rivet system and a generator interfacing layer named RivetGun. Finally, I describe how Rivet is already being used as a central part of a new generator tuning system, and summarise two other CEDAR activities, HepML and HepForge.Comment: 13 pages, prepared for XI International Workshop on Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques in Physics Research, Amsterdam, April 23-27 200

Tuning of MC generator MPI models

MC models of multiple partonic scattering inevitably introduce many free parameters, either fundamental to the models or from their integration with MC treatments of primary-scattering evolution. This non-perturbative and non-factorisable physics in particular cannot currently be constrained from theoretical principles, and hence parameter optimisation against experimental data is required. This process is commonly referred to as MC tuning. We summarise the principles, problems and history of MC tuning, and the still-evolving modern approach to both model optimisation and estimation of modelling uncertainties.Comment: Contributed chapter to "Multiple Parton Interactions at the LHC", World Scientific 201

HepData reloaded: reinventing the HEP data archive

We describe the status of the HepData database system, following a major re-development in time for the advent of LHC data. The new HepData system benefits from use of modern database and programming language technologies, as well as a variety of high-quality tools for interfacing the data sources and their presentation, primarily via the Web. The new back-end provides much more flexible and semantic data representations than before, on which new external applications can be built to respond to the data demands of the LHC experimental era. The HepData re-development was largely motivated by a desire to have a single source of reference data for Monte Carlo validation and tuning tools, whose status and connection to HepData we also briefly review.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Presented at 13th International Workshop on Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques in Physics Research (ACAT 2010), February 22-27, 2010, Jaipur, Indi

QCD-aware partonic jet clustering for truth-jet flavour labelling

We present an algorithm for deriving partonic flavour labels to be applied to truth particle jets in Monte Carlo event simulations. The inputs to this approach are final pre-hadronization partons, to remove dependence on unphysical details such as the order of matrix element calculation and shower generator frame recoil treatment. These are clustered using standard jet algorithms, modified to restrict the allowed pseudojet combinations to those in which tracked flavour labels are consistent with QCD and QED Feynman rules. The resulting algorithm is shown to be portable between the major families of shower generators, and largely insensitive to many possible systematic variations: it hence offers significant advantages over existing ad hoc labelling schemes. However, it is shown that contamination from multi-parton scattering simulations can disrupt the labelling results. Suggestions are made for further extension to incorporate more detailed QCD splitting function kinematics, robustness improvements, and potential uses for truth-level physics object definitions and tagging

Computational challenges for MC event generation

The sophistication of fully exclusive MC event generation has grown at an extraordinary rate since the start of the LHC era, but has been mirrored by a similarly extraordinary rise in the CPU cost of state-of-the-art MC calculations. The reliance of experimental analyses on these calculations raises the disturbing spectre of MC computations being a leading limitation on the physics impact of the HL-LHC, with MC trends showing more signs of further cost-increases rather than the desired speed-ups. I review the methods and bottlenecks in MC computation, and areas where new computing architectures, machine-learning methods, and social structures may help to avert calamity.Comment: Based on a plenary talk at ACAT 201

PySLHA: a Pythonic interface to SUSY Les Houches Accord data

This paper describes the PySLHA package, a Python language module and program collection for reading, writing and visualising SUSY model data in the SLHA format. PySLHA can read and write SLHA data in a very general way, including the official SLHA2 extension and user customisations, and with arbitrarily deep indexing of data block entries and a dedicated, intuitive interface for particle data and decay information. PySLHA can additionally read and write the legacy ISAWIG model format, and provides format conversion scripts. The draft SLHA3 XSECTION feature is also fully supported. A publication-quality mass spectrum & decay chain plotting tool, slhaplot, is also included.Comment: 7 pages. Original submission 2013, updated 2015 for version 3.1 with XSECTION suppor

Monte Carlo event generator validation and tuning for the LHC

We summarise the motivation for, and the status of, the tools developed by CEDAR/MCnet for validating and tuning Monte Carlo event generators for the LHC against data from previous colliders. We then present selected preliminary results from studies of event shapes and hadronisation observables from e+e- colliders, and of minimum bias and underlying event observables from the Tevatron, and comment on the approach needed with early LHC data to best exploit the potential for new physics discoveries at the LHC in the next few years.Comment: Prepared for Proceedings of XII Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques in Physics Research, November 3-7 2008, Erice, Ital