In conventional parton showers (including ones based on dipoles/antennae), a given $(\mathrm{Born}+m)$-parton configuration can typically be reached via ${\mathcal O}(m!)$ different "shower histories". In the context of matrix-element-correction and merging procedures, accounting for these histories mandates fairly complex and resource-intensive algorithms. A so far little-explored alternative in the shower context is to divide the branching phase spaces into distinct "sectors", each of which only receives contributions from a single branching kernel. This has a number of consequences including making the shower operator bijective; i.e., each parton configuration now has a single unique "inverse". As a first step towards developing a full-fledged matrix-element-correction and merging procedure based on such showers, we here extend the sector approach for antenna showers to hadron-hadron collisions, including mass and helicity dependence.
We outline a new technique for the fully-differential matching of final-state parton showers to NNLO calculations, focussing here on the simplest case of leptonic collisions with two final-state jets. The strategy is facilitated by working in the antenna formalism, making use of NNLO antenna subtraction on the fixed-order side and the sector-antenna framework on the shower side. As long as the combined real-virtual and double-real corrections do not overcompensate the real-emission term in the three-jet region, negative weights can be eliminated from the matching scheme. We describe the implem…
For the first time, differential cross sections for the production of W-bosons in conjunction with up to three jets, computed at next-to leading order in QCD and including parton shower corrections, are presented and compared to recent experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider.
We extend a quantum kinetic approach to the description of hadronic showers in space, time and momentum space to deep-inelastic $ep$ collisions, with particular reference to experiments at HERA. We follow the history of hard scattering events back to the initial hadronic state and forward to the formation of colour-singlet pre-hadronic clusters and their decays into hadrons. The time evolution of the space-like initial-state shower and the time-like secondary partons are treated similarly, and cluster formation is treated using a spatial criterion motivated by confinement and a non-perturbativ…
We study in this paper the production, in hadronic collisions, of final states with W gauge bosons, heavy quark pairs and n extra jets (with n up to 4). The complete partonic tree-level QCD matrix elements are evaluated using the ALPHA algorithm, and the events generated at the parton level are then evolved through the QCD shower and eventually hadronised using the coherent shower evolution provided by the HERWIG Monte Carlo. We discuss the details of our Monte Carlo implementation, and present results of phenomenological interest for the Tevatron Collider and for the LHC. We also comment on t…
A method is suggested to combine tree level QCD matrix for the production of multi jet final states and the parton shower in hadronic interactions. The method follows closely an algorithm developed recently for the case of $e^+e^-$ annihilations.
We present a parton-shower matched NNLO QCD calculation for hadronic final state production in Deep Inelastic Scattering. The computation is based on the UNLOPS method and is implemented in the publicly available event generation framework SHERPA. Results are compared to measurements performed by the H1 collaboration.
We present an antenna shower formalism including contributions from initial-state partons and corresponding backwards evolution. We give a set of phase-space maps and antenna functions for massless partons which define a complete shower formalism suitable for computing observables with hadronic initial states. We focus on the initial-state components: initial-initial and initial-final antenna configurations. The formalism includes comprehensive possibilities for uncertainty estimates. We report on some preliminary results obtained with an implementation in the Vincia antenna-shower framework.
Forward hadron production in proton-air collisions above LHC energies through the fluctuations of extensive air showers
Departamento de Física, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Universidade de Lisboa（里斯本大学高等理工学院物理系）；Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas (LIP)（粒子实验与仪器实验室）；Technische Universität Dortmund（多特蒙德工业大学）
The multiple production processes of secondary hadrons in proton-antiproton scattering are divided into three types. The first type is a shower of secondary hadrons produced from gluon string decay, the second type is a shower of secondary hadrons produced from two quark strings decay and the third is a shower produced from three quark strings decay. At the same time there are only two types for proton-proton scattering - shower from gluon string and shower from two quark strings. These showers do not correspond to pomeron showers originating from cuts of one, two, three, ... pomerons. Multipl…
High-energy cosmic rays are observed indirectly by detecting the extensive air showers initiated in Earth's atmosphere. The interpretation of these observations relies on accurate models of air shower physics, which is a challenge and an opportunity to test QCD under extreme conditions. Air showers are hadronic cascades, which eventually decay into muons. The muon number is a key observable to infer the mass composition of cosmic rays. Air shower simulations with state-of-the-art QCD models show a significant muon deficit with respect to measurements; this is called the Muon Puzzle. The origin…
We demonstrate that the shower-to-shower fluctuations of the muon content of extensive air showers correlate with the fluctuations of a variable of the first interaction of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays, which is computed from the fraction of energy carried by the hadrons that sustain the hadronic cascade. The influence of subsequent stages of the shower development is found to play a sub-dominant role. As a consequence, the shower-to-shower distribution of the muon content is a direct probe of the hadron energy spectrum of interactions beyond 100 TeV center of mass energies.
Wide field-of-view gamma-ray observatories must fight the overwhelming cosmic ray background to identify very-high-energy astrophysical gamma-ray events. This work introduces a novel gamma/hadron discriminating variable, $LCm$, which quantifies the azimuthal non-uniformity of the particle distributions at the ground. This non-uniformity, due to the presence of hadronic sub-showers, is higher in proton-induced showers than in gamma showers. The discrimination power of this new variable is then discussed, as a function of the air shower array fill factor, in the energy range $10\,$TeV to $1\,$Pe…
We carry out extensive tests of the next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy of the PanScales parton showers, as introduced recently for colour-singlet production in hadron collisions. The tests include comparisons to (semi-)analytic NLL calculations of a wide range of hadron-collider observables: the colour-singlet boson transverse momentum distribution; global and non-global hadronic energy flow variables related to jet vetoes and analogues of jettiness distributions; (sub)jet multiplicities; and observables sensitive to the DGLAP evolution of the incoming momentum fractions. In the tests,…
We summarise the main features of VINCIA's antenna-based treatment of QCD initial- and final-state showers, which includes iterated tree-level matrix-element corrections and automated evaluations of perturbative shower uncertainties. The latter are computed on the fly and are cast as a set of alternative weights for each generated event. The resulting algorithm has been made publicly available as a plug-in to the PYTHIA 8 event generator.
We present a calculation of heavy-flavor production in hadronic collisions in association with one jet matched to parton shower Monte Carlo programs at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. Top-quark decays are included and spin correlations in the decay products are taken into account. The calculation builds on existing results for the radiative corrections to heavy-quark plus one jet production and uses the POWHEG BOX for the interface to the parton shower programs PYTHIA or HERWIG. A broad phenomenological study for the Large Hadron Collider and the Tevatron is presented. In particular…
We formulate PanScales parton showers for hadron collisions so as to achieve next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy across a broad set of observables. We do so specifically for colour singlet production. Relative to the existing PanScales final-state showers, the main new question is that of how to redistribute momentum imbalances from initial-state branching across the remainder of the event. We presents tests of the showers at fixed order, including the treatment of full colour for soft-collinear emissions and of spin correlations in both the soft and collinear domains. We also include c…
We present theoretical predictions for the hadroproduction of t tbar W+, t tbar W- and t tbar Z at LHC as obtained by matching numerical computations at NLO accuracy in QCD with Shower Monte Carlo programs. The calculation is performed by PowHel, relying on the POWHEG-BOX framework, that allows for the matching between the fixed order computation, with input of matrix elements produced by the HELAC-NLO collection of event generators, and the Parton Shower evolution, followed by hadronization and hadron decays as described by PYTHIA and HERWIG. We focus on the dilepton and trilepton decay chann…
Comparisons of experimental data with theoretical predictions for collider processes containing hadronic jets rely on shower Monte Carlo event generators to include corrections to perturbative calculations from hadronization, parton showering, multiple parton collisions. We examine current treatments of these corrections and propose alternative methods to take into account nonperturbative effects and parton showering in the context of next-to-leading-order (NLO) event generators. We point out sizeable parton-showering corrections to jet transverse energy spectra at high rapidity, and discuss k…
This paper proposes a new search program for dark sector parton showers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These signatures arise in theories characterized by strong dynamics in a hidden sector, such as Hidden Valley models. A dark parton shower can be composed of both invisible dark matter particles as well as dark sector states that decay to Standard Model particles via a portal. The focus here is on the specific case of 'semi-visible jets,' jet-like collider objects where the visible states in the shower are Standard Model hadrons. We present a Simplified Model-like parametrization for the…
We present heavy-flavor production in association with one jet in hadronic collisions matched to parton shower Monte Carlo predictions at next-to-leading order QCD with account of top-quark decays and spin correlations. We use the POWHEGBOX for the interface to the parton shower programs PYTHIA or HERWIG. Phenomenological studies for the LHC and the Tevatron are presented with particular emphasis on the inclusion of spin-correlation effects in top decay and the impact of the parton shower on the top-quark charge asymmetries. As a novel application of the present calculation the measurement of …
We here present an extension of the CKKW-L multi-jet merging technique to so-called sector showers as implemented in the Vincia antenna shower. The bijective nature of sector showers allows for efficient multi-jet merging at high multiplicities, as any given configuration possesses only a single "history", while retaining the accuracy of the CKKW-L technique. Our method reduces the factorial scaling of the number of parton shower histories to a constant of a single history per colour-ordered final state. We show that the complexity of constructing shower histories is reduced to an effective li…
Inspired by recent astrophysical observations of leptonic excesses measured by satellite experiments, we consider the impact of some general models of the dark sector on the muon production in extensive air showers. We present a compact approximative expression for the bremsstrahlung of a massive photon from an electron and use it within Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the amount of weakly interacting photon-like massive particles that could be produced in an extensive air shower. We find that the resulting muon production is by many orders of magnitude below the average muon count in a sh…
We apply Laplace method for the tree diagrams to calculate the interference terms arising as a result of summation of particles permutations in the final state of scattering. These terms significantly influence the values of experimentally observed quantities. We show that the tree diagram with a single input line and an arbitrary number of output lines has a maximum value for the equal four-momenta of secondary particles. It means the tree diagrams of inelastic scattering describe the formation of parton and hadron showers. We also demonstrate the need to take into account the contributions f…
High energy particle showers produce coherent Cherenkov radio emission in dense, radio-transparent media such as cold ice. Using PYTHIA and GEANT simulation tools, we make a comparative study among electromagnetic (EM) and hadronic showers initiated by single particles and neutrino showers initiated by multiple particles produced at the neutrino-nucleon event vertex. We include all the physics processes and do a complete 3-D simulation up to 100 TeV for all showers and to 1 PeV for electron and neutrino induced showers. We calculate the radio pulses for energies between 100 GeV and 1 PeV and f…
Detailed and precise background predictions are the backbone of large parts of high-energy collider phenomenology. This requires to embed precision QCD calculations into detailed event generators, to produce comprehensive software simulations. Only continued progress in this direction will allow us to exploit the full potential of measurements at the Large Hadron Collider, or at a future Electron-Ion Collider. This work presents a method to combine third-order QCD calculations for hadronic scattering processes with Monte-Carlo event generators, thus enabling a new generation of precision predi…
At high energy, cosmic rays can only be studied by measuring the extensive air showers they produce in the atmosphere of the Earth. Although the main features of air showers can be understood within a simple model of successive interactions, detailed simulations and a realistic description of particle production are needed to calculate observables relevant to air shower experiments. Currently hadronic interaction models are the main source of uncertainty of such simulations. We will study the effect of using different hadronic models available in CORSIKA and CONEX on extensive air shower predi…
If large-angle multigluon radiation gives significant contributions to parton showers in the LHC high-energy region, appropriate generalizations of parton branching methods are required for Monte Carlo simulations of exclusive high-multiplicity final states. We discuss the use in this context of transverse-momentum dependent kernels which factorize in the region of high energies. We give examples based on ep and p pbar multi-jet data, and point to possible developments for distributions associated with massive final states at the LHC.
We consider dark sector scenarios where dark matter is accompanied by a dark photon and multiple-flavor dark fermions charged under the dark gauge group. We study quantum interference effects in dark sector jets, where multiple dark photons are emitted from high-energy dark fermions. We perform fully quantum simulations of dark sector showers and compare the results against those of the classical Monte-Carlo simulations. We find important differences in probability distributions of dark photon countings between quantum and classical computations. When the number of dark-fermion flavors is larg…
A Markovian shower algorithm based on "sector antennae" is presented and its main properties illustrated. Tree-level full-color matrix elements can be automatically incorporated in the algorithm and are re-interpreted as process-dependent 2 -> n antenna functions. In hard parts of phase-space, these functions generate tree-level matrix-element corrections to the shower. In soft parts, they should improve the logarithmic accuracy of it. The number of matrix-element evaluations required per order of matching is 1, with an unweighting efficiency that remains very high for arbitrary numbers of leg…
We present a complete set of helicity-dependent 2->3 antenna functions for QCD initial- and final- state radiation. The functions are implemented in the Vincia shower Monte Carlo framework and are used to generate showers for hadron-collider processes in which helicities are explicitly sampled (and conserved) at each step of the evolution. Although not capturing the full effects of spin correlations, the explicit helicity sampling does permit a significantly faster evaluation of fixed-order matrix-element corrections. A further speed increase is achieved via the implementation of a new fast li…
We introduce a backward evolution Monte Carlo algorithm implementation of the CCFM equation and present latest developments in phenomenology of hadron-hadron collisions for the Monte Carlo generator Cascade.
A method for incorporating information from next-to-leading order QCD matrix elements for hadronic diboson production into showering event generators is presented. In the hard central region (high jet transverse momentum) where perturbative QCD is reliable, events are sampled according to the first order tree level matrix element. In the soft and collinear regions next-to-leading order corrections are approximated by calculating the differential cross section across the phase space accessible to the parton shower using the first order (virtual graphs included) matrix element. The parton shower…
We present predictions for hadronic decays of the Higgs boson at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD matched with parton shower based on the POWHEG framework. Those include decays into bottom quarks with full bottom-quark mass dependence, light quarks, and gluons in the heavy top quark effective theory. Our calculations describe exclusive decays of the Higgs boson with leading logarithmic accuracy in the Sudakov region and next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy matched with parton shower in the three-jet region, with normalizations fixed to the partial width at NNLO. We estimated remaini…
The muon tagging is an essential tool to distinguish between gamma and hadron-induced showers in wide field-of-view gamma-ray observatories. In this work, it is shown that an efficient muon tagging (and counting) can be achieved using a water Cherenkov detector with a reduced water volume and 4 PMTs, provided that the PMT signal spatial and time patterns are interpreted by an analysis based on Machine Learning (ML). The developed analysis has been tested for different shower and array configurations. The output of the ML analysis, the probability of having a muon in the WCD station, has been u…
We study the proposal that the cosmic ray primaries above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff are gluino-containing hadrons ($\tilde g$-hadrons). We describe the interaction of $\tilde g$-hadrons with nucleons in the framework of the Gribov-Regge approach using a modified version of the hadronic interaction model QGSJET for the generations of Extensive Air Showers (EAS). There are two mass windows marginally allowed for gluinos: $m_{\tilde g}\lsim 3$ GeV and $25\lsim m_{\tilde g}\lsim 35$ GeV. Gluino-containing hadrons corresponding to the second window produce EAS very different from the…
A new model of QCD parton shower is proposed which is dedicated to two-photon process in $e^+ e^-$ scattering. When hadron jets are produced, the photon may resolve into quark-antiquark pairs so that the structure functions of the photon should be introduced. Based on the Altarelli-Parisi equation for these functions, an algorithm is formulated that allows us to construct a model for parton showers for the photon. Our model consists of two parts, one of which describes the deep inelastic scattering of the photon and the other one the scattering of two quasi-real photons. Using the model some r…
We present a new approach to combine multiple NLO parton-level calculations matched to parton showers into a single inclusive event sample. The method provides a description of hard multi-jet configurations at next-to leading order in the perturbative expansion of QCD, and it is supplemented with the all-orders resummed modelling of jet fragmentation provided by the parton shower. The formal accuracy of this technique is discussed in detail, invoking the example of electron-positron annihilation into hadrons. We focus on the effect of renormalisation scale variations in particular. Comparison …
We compare different procedures for combining fixed-order tree-level matrix-element generators with parton showers. We use the case of W-production at the Tevatron and the LHC to compare different implementations of the so-called CKKW and MLM schemes using different matrix-element generators and different parton cascades. We find that although similar results are obtained in all cases, there are important differences.
This lecture discusses the physics implemented by Monte Carlo event generators for hadron colliders. It details the construction of parton showers and the matching of parton showers to fixed-order calculations at higher orders in perturbative QCD. It also discusses approaches to merge calculations for a varying number of jets, the interface to the underlying event and hadronization.
We investigate the detection of exotic massive strongly interacting hadrons (uhecrons) in ultra high energy cosmic ray telescopes. The conclusion is that experiments such as the Pierre Auger Observatory have the potential to detect these particles. It is shown that uhecron showers have clear distinctive features when compared to proton and nuclear showers. The simulation of uhecron air showers, and its detection and reconstruction by fluorescence telescopes is described. We determine basic cuts in observables that will separate uhecrons from the cosmic ray bulk, assuming this is composed by pr…
We report on a method for matching the next-to-leading order calculation of QCD jet production in e+e- annihilation with a Monte Carlo parton shower event generator (MC) to produce realistic final states. The final result is accurate to next-to-leading order (NLO) for infrared-safe one-scale quantities, such as the Durham 3-jet fraction y_3, and agrees well with parton shower results for multi-scale quantities, such as the jet mass distribution in 3-jet events. For our numerical results, the NLO calculation is matched to the event generator Pythia, though the method is more general. We compare…
We consider a theory with isotropic nonbirefringent Lorentz violation in the photon sector and explore the effects on the development of the electromagnetic component of extensive air showers in the Earth atmosphere. Specifically, we consider the case of a "fast" photon with a phase velocity larger than the maximum attainable velocity of a massive Dirac fermion (this case corresponds to a negative Lorentz-violating parameter $κ$ in the action). Shower photons with above-threshold energies decay promptly into electron-positron pairs, instead of decaying by the conventional production of electro…
We study the matching of multijet matrix elements and shower evolution in the case of top production in hadronic collisions at the Tevatron and at the LHC. We present the results of the matching algorithm implemented in the ALPGEN Monte Carlo generator, and compare them with results obtained at the parton level, and with the predictions of the MC@NLO approach. We highlight the consistency of the matching algorithm when applied to these final states, and the excellent agreement obtained with MC@NLO for most inclusive quantities. We nevertheless identify also a remarkable difference in the rapid…
We compute the production cross section of a top-antitop pair in association with a jet at hadron colliders at next-to-leading order accuracy matched with parton shower algorithms to make predictions at the hadron level. The parton shower allows for including the decay of the top quarks at the leading order accuracy. We use a framework based on three well established numerical codes, the POWHEG-BOX, used for the calculation of the cross section, HELAC, which generates the matrix elements for the Born-level, real emission and the virtual part, and finally a parton shower program, such as PYTHIA…
A comparative study of commonly used hadronic collision simulation packages is presented. The characteristics of the products of hadron-nucleus collisions are analyzed from a general perspective, but focusing on their correlation with diffractive processes. One of the purposes of our work is to give quantitative estimations of the impact that different characteristics of the hadronic models have on air shower observables. Several sets of shower simulations using different settings for the parameters controlling the diffractive processes are used to analyze the correlations between diffractivit…
A modified version of the CKKW matrix element merging algorithm is presented, suitable for use in an angular-ordered parton shower, using truncated showers and forced splittings. The algorithm is implemented in the Herwig++ Monte Carlo event generator for the benchmark process e+e- -> hadrons. Results are presented at parton and hadron levels, demonstrating a smooth merging between the matrix elements and parton shower and an improved description of LEP data.
Understanding hadronic interactions at high energies represents a very important ingredient for modeling high energy cosmic ray air showers. In this paper, we present a new approach to simulate hadronic interactions, including hadron-hadron, hadron-nucleus, and nucleus-nucleus scattering, in the energy range roughly between 10^11 and 10^17 eV. Such collisions are very complex, being composed of many components, and therefore some strategy is needed to construct a reliable model. The central point of our approach is the hypothesis, that the behavior of high energy interactions is universal (uni…
As no evidence for classic WIMP-based signatures of dark matter have been found at the LHC, several phenomenological studies have raised the possibility of accessing a strongly-interacting dark sector through new collider-event topologies. If dark mesons exist, their evolution and hadronization procedure are currently little constrained. They could decay promptly and result in QCD-like jet structures, even though the original decaying particles are dark sector ones; they could behave as semi-visible jets; or they could behave as completely detector-stable hadrons, in which case the final state…
Production of quarks and gluons in hadron collisions tests Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) over a wide range of energy. Models of QCD are implemented in event generators to simulate hadron collisions and evolution of quarks and gluons into jets of hadrons. PYTHIA8 uses the parton shower model for simulating particle collisions and is optimized using experimental observations. Recent measurements of event shape variables and jet cross-sections in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider have been used to optimize the parton shower model as used in PYTHIA8.
We have developed a Monte Carlo event generator for non-resonant diphoton ($γγ$) production at hadron collisions in the framework of GR@PPA, which consistently includes additional one-jet production. The jet-matching method developed for initial-state jet production has been extended to the final state in order to regularize the final-state QED divergence in the $qg \rightarrow γγ+ q$ process. A QCD/QED-mixed parton shower (PS) has been developed to complete the matching. The PS has the capability of enforcing hard-photon radiation, and small-$Q^{2}$ photon radiations that are not covered by t…
We present a method, based on the positive weight next-to-leading-order matching formalism (POWHEG), to simulate photon production processes at next-to-leading-order (NLO). This technique is applied to the simulation of diphoton production in hadron-hadron collisions. The algorithm consistently combines the parton shower and NLO calculation, producing only positive weight events. The simulation includes both the photon fragmentation contribution and a full implementation of the truncated shower required to correctly describe soft emissions in an angular-ordered parton shower.
The geometric distribution of high-energy hadrons >100 GeV in shower cores measured with the KASCADE calorimeter is analyzed. The data are checked for sensitivity to hadronic interaction features and indications of new physics as discussed in the literature. The angular correlation of the most energetic hadrons and in particular the fraction of events with hadrons being aligned are quantified by means of the commonly used parameter lambda_4. The analysis shows that the observed lambda_4 distribution is compatible with that predicted by simulations and is not linked to an angular correlation fr…
We present a new version of the hadron interaction event generator Sibyll. While the core ideas of the model have been preserved, the new version handles the production of baryon pairs and leading particles in a new way. In addition, production of charmed hadrons is included. Updates to the model are informed by high-precision measurements of the total and inelastic cross sections with the forward detectors at the LHC that constrain the extrapolation to ultra-high energy. Minimum-bias measurements of particle spectra and multiplicities support the tuning of fragmentation parameters. This paper…
We consider QCD based model of hadrons interaction in which gluons density in wave function of initial state is low in rapidity space and real hadrons are produced by decay of color field strings. Hadrons production processes in pp and p antip interactions differ on principle. There are three types of inelastic processes in p antip collision. The first type is production of secondary hadrons shower from decay of gluon string. The second type is shower produced from decay of two quark strings and the third one -- from decay of three quark strings. At the same time there are only two types of in…
