Monte Carlo Event Generators

1. Durham University Monte Carlo Event Generators Lecture 1: BasicPrinciples of Event Generation Peter Richardson IPPP, Durham University CTEQ School July 06

2. So the title I was given for these lectures was ‘Event Generator Basics’ • However after talking to some of you yesterday evening I realised it should probably be called ‘Why I Shouldn’t Just Run PYTHIA’ CTEQ School July 06

3. Plan • Lecture 1:Introduction • Basic principles of event generation • Monte Carlo integration techniques • Matrix Elements • Lecture 2:Parton Showers • Parton Shower Approach • Recent advances, CKKW and MC@NLO • Lecture 3:Hadronization and Underlying Event • Hadronization Models • Underlying Event Modelling CTEQ School July 06

4. Plan • I will concentrate on hadron collisions. • There are many things I will not have time to cover • Heavy Ion physics • B Production • BSM Physics • Diffractive Physics • I will concentrate on the basic aspects of Monte Carlo simulations which are essential for the Tevatron and LHC. CTEQ School July 06

5. Plan • However I will try and present the recent progress in a number of areas which are important for the Tevatron and LHC • Matching of matrix elements and parton showers • Traditional Matching Techniques • CKKW approach • MC@NLO • Other recent progress • While I will talk about the physics modelling in the different programs I won’t talk about the technical details of running them. CTEQ School July 06

6. Other Lectures and Information • Unfortunately there are no good books or review papers on Event Generator physics. • However many of the other generator authors have given similar lectures to these which are available on the web • Torbjorn Sjostrand at the Durham Yeti meeting http://www.thep.lu.se/~torbjorn and then Talks • Mike Seymour’s CERN training lectures http://seymour.home.cern.ch/seymour/slides/CERNlectures.html CTEQ School July 06

7. Other Lectures and Information • Steve Mrenna, CTEQ lectures, 2004 http://www.phys.psu.edu/~cteq/schools/summer04/mrenna/mrenna.pdf • Bryan Webber, HERWIG lectures for CDF, October 2004 http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/physics/lectures/herwig_Oct2004.html • The “Les Houches Guidebook to Monte Carlo Generators for Hadron Collider Physics”, hep-ph/0403045 http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ph/0403045 • Often the PYTHIA manual is a good source of information, but it is of course PYTHIA specific. CTEQ School July 06

8. Lecture 1 Today we will cover • Monte Carlo Integration Technique • Basic Idea of Event Generators • Event Generator Programs • Matrix Element Calculations CTEQ School July 06

9. Monte Carlo Integration Technique • The basis of all Monte Carlo simulations is the Monte Carlo technique for the evaluation of integrals • Suppose we want to evaluate • This can be written as an average. • The average can be calculated by selecting N values randomly from a uniform distribution • Often we define a weight • In which case the integral is the average of the weight. CTEQ School July 06

10. Monte Carlo Integration Technique • We also have an estimate of the error on the integral using the central limit theorem where CTEQ School July 06

11. Convergence • The Monte Carlo technique has an error which converges as • Other common techniques converge faster • Trapezium rule • Simpson’s rule However only if the derivatives exist and are finite. Otherwise the convergence of the Trapezium or Simpson’s rule will be worse. CTEQ School July 06

12. Convergence • In more than 1 dimension • Monte Carlo extends trivially to more dimensions and always converges as • Trapezium rule goes as • Simpson’s rule goes as • In a typical LHC event we have ~1000 particles so we need to do ~3000 phase space integrals for the momenta. • Monte Carlo is the only viable option. CTEQ School July 06

13. Improving Convergence • The convergence of the integral can be improved by reducing, VN. • This is normally called Importance Sampling. • The basic idea is to perform a Jacobian transform so that the integral is flat in the new integration variable. • Let’s consider the example of a fixed width Breit-Wigner distribution where • M is the physical mass of the particle • m is the off-shell mass • G is the width. CTEQ School July 06

14. Improving Convergence • A useful transformation is which gives • So we have in fact reduced the error to zero. CTEQ School July 06

15. Improving Convergence • In practice few of the cases we need to deal with in real examples can be exactly integrated. • In these cases we try and pick a function that approximates the behaviour of the function we want to integrate. • For example suppose we have a spin-1 meson decaying to two scalar mesons which are much lighter, consider the example of the r decaying to massless pions. • In this case the width CTEQ School July 06

16. Improving Convergence • If we were just to generate flat in m2 then the weight would be • If we perform a jacobian transformation the integral becomes and the weight is CTEQ School July 06

17. Improving Convergence • For this case if we perform the integral using m2 the error is ~100 times larger for the same number of evaluations. • When we come to event generation this would be a factor of 100 slower. Generate flat in m2 Generate using transform CTEQ School July 06

18. Improving Convergence • Using a Jacobian transformation is always the best way of improving the convergence. • There are automatic approaches (e.g. VEGAS) but they are never as good. CTEQ School July 06

19. Multi-Channel approaches • Suppose instead of having one peak we have an integral with lots of peaks, say from the inclusion of excited r resonances in some process. • Can’t just use one Breit-Wigner. The error becomes large. CTEQ School July 06

20. Multi-Channel approaches • If we want to smooth out many peaks pick a function where ai is the weight for a given term such that Sai=1. • We can then rewrite the integral of a function I(m2) as CTEQ School July 06

21. Multi-Channel approaches • We can then perform a separate Jacobian transform for each of the integrals in the sum • This is then easy to implement numerically by picking one of the integrals (channels) with probability ai and then calculating the weight as before. • This is called the Multi-Channel procedure and is used in the most sophisticated programs for integrating matrix elements in particle physics. • There are methods to automatically optimise the choice of the channel weights, ai. CTEQ School July 06

22. Monte Carlo Integration Technique • In addition to calculating the integral we often also want to select values of x at random according to f(x). • This is easy provided that we know the maximum value of the function in the region we are integrating over. • Then we randomly generate values of x in the integration region and keep them with probability which is easy to implement by generating a random number between 0 and 1 and keeping the value of x if the random number is less than the probability. • This is called unweighting. CTEQ School July 06

23. Summary • Disadvantages of Monte Carlo • Slow convergence in few dimensions • Advantages of Monte Carlo • Fast convergence in many dimensions • Arbitrarily complex integration regions • Few points needed to get first estimate • Each additional point improves the accuracy • Easy error estimate • More than one quantity can be evaluated at once. CTEQ School July 06

24. Phase Space • Cross section • And decay rates • Can be calculated as the integral of the matrix element over the Lorentz invariant phase space. • Easy to evaluate for the two body case CTEQ School July 06

25. 2 = n n-1 Phase Space • More complicated cases can then be handled recursively • Given by • There are other approaches (RAMBO/MAMBO) which are better if the matrix element is flat, but this is rarely true in practice. CTEQ School July 06

26. Particle Decays • If we consider the example of top quark decay tgbW+gbl+nl • The Breit-Wigner peak of the W is very strong and must be removed using a Jacobian factor. • Illustrates another big advantage of Monte Carlo. • Can just histogram any quantities we are interested in. Other techniques require a new integration for each observable. CTEQ School July 06

27. Cross Sections • In hadron collisions we have additional integrations over the incoming parton densities • The parton level cross section can have strong peaks, e.g. the Z Breit-Wigner which need to be smoothed using a Jacobian transformation. CTEQ School July 06

28. Monte Carlo Event Generators • At the most basic level a Monte Carlo event generator is a program which simulates particle physics events with the same probability as they occur in nature. • In essence it performs a large number of integrals and then unweights to give the momenta of the particles which interact with the detector. CTEQ School July 06

29. Example CDF 2 jet + missing energy event CTEQ School July 06

30. A Monte Carlo Event Hard Perturbative scattering: Usually calculated at leading order in QCD, electroweak theory or some BSM model. Modelling of the soft underlying event Multiple perturbative scattering. Perturbative Decays calculated in QCD, EW or some BSM theory. Initial and Final State parton showers resum the large QCD logs. Finally the unstable hadrons are decayed. Non-perturbative modelling of the hadronization process. CTEQ School July 06

31. Monte Carlo Event Generators • All the event generators split the simulation up into the same phases: • Hard Process; • Parton Shower; • Secondary Decays; • Hadronization; • Multiple Scattering/Soft Underlying Event; • Hadron Decays. • I will discuss the different models and approximations in the different programs as we go along. • I will try and give a fair and objective comparision, but bear in mind that I’m one of the authors of HERWIG. CTEQ School July 06

32. Monte Carlo Event Generators • There are a range of Monte Carlo programs available. • In general there are two classes of programs • General Purpose Event Generators • Does everything • Specialized Programs • Just performs part of the process • In general need both are needed. CTEQ School July 06

33. Monte Carlo Event Generators CTEQ School July 06

34. Hard Processes • Traditionally all the hard processes used were in the event generators. • These are normally 2g2 scattering processes. • There are a vast range of processes in both HERWIG and PYTHIA. • However for the LHC we are often interested in higher multiplicity final states. • For these need to use specialized matrix element generators. CTEQ School July 06

35. Processes in HERWIG CTEQ School July 06

36. Processes in PYTHIA CTEQ School July 06

37. Matrix Element Calculations • There are two parts to calculating the cross section. • Calculating the matrix element for a given point in phase space. • Integrating it over the phase space with whatever cuts are required. • Often the matrix elements have peaks and singularities and integrating them is hard particularly for the sort of high multiplicity final states we are interested in for the Tevatron and LHC. CTEQ School July 06

38. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 A A A A B B B n n n n n n n 2 2 2 1 + B + + n * * * * Matrix Element Calculations There are a number of ways of calculating the matrix element • Trace Techniques • We all learnt this as students, but spend goes like N2 with the number of diagrams = + + + CTEQ School July 06

39. 1 A n 2 1 + B + n Matrix Element Calculations • Helicity Amplitudes • Work out the matrix element as a complex number, sum up the diagrams and then square. • Numerically, grows like N with the number of diagrams. CTEQ School July 06

40. Matrix Element Calculations • Off-Shell recursion relations (Berends-Giele, ALPHA, Schwinger-Dyson.) • Don’t draw diagrams at all use a recursion relation to get final states with more particles from those with fewer particles. CTEQ School July 06

41. 1 l+1 = 1 1 + n m m+1 m l m+1 n n Matrix Element Calculations • Blue lines are off-shell gluons, other lines are on-shell. • Full amplitudes are built up from simpler amplitudes with fewer particles. • This is a recursion built from off-shell currents. CTEQ School July 06

42. + - + - + + MHV/BCFW Recursion • All the new techniques are essential on-shell recursion relations. • The first results Cachazo, Svrcek and Witten were for the combination of maximum helicity violating (MHV) amplitudes. • Has two negative helicity gluons (all others positive) CTEQ School July 06

43. - + + - + - - + + - + - - + MHV Recursion • Here all the particles on-shell, with rules for combining them. = CTEQ School July 06

44. BCFW Recursion • Initially only for gluons. • Many developments since then culminating (for the moment) in the BCFW recursion relations. • This has been generalised to massive particles. CTEQ School July 06

45. Integration • All of this is wonderful for evaluating the matrix element at one phase space point. • However it has to be integrated. • The problem is that the matrix element has a lot of peaks. • Makes numerical integration tricky. CTEQ School July 06

46. Integration • As we have seen there are essentially two techniques. • Adaptive integration VEGAS and variants • Automatically smooth out peaks to reduce error • Often not good if peaks not in one of the integration variables • Multi-Channel integration • Analytically smooth out the peaks in many different channels • Automatically optimise the different channels. CTEQ School July 06

47. Integration • In practice the best programs use a combination of the two. • Multichannel to get rid of the worst behaviour. • Then adaptive to make it more efficient. CTEQ School July 06

48. Programs Faster Faster CTEQ School July 06

49. Integration • The integration of the matrix elements is the problem not the calculation of the matrix element. • The best programs have the best integration NOT the best calculation of the matrix element. • In Monte Carlo event generators most of the work is always involved with the phase space. CTEQ School July 06

50. Summary • In this morning’s lecture we have looked at • The Monte Carlo integration technique • Basics of phase space integration • The different parts of the Monte Carlo event generator. • Calculation of the hard matrix element • This afternoon we will go on and consider the simulation of perturbative QCD in Monte Carlo simulations. CTEQ School July 06