The HepMC3 event record library for Monte Carlo event generators

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • Andy Buckley
  • Philip Ilten
  • Dmitri Konstantinov
  • Leif Lonnblad
  • James Monk
  • Witold Pokorski
  • Tomasz Przedzinski
  • Andrii Verbytskyi

In high-energy physics, Monte Carlo event generators (MCEGs) are used to simulate the interactions of high energy particles. MCEG event records store the information on the simulated particles and their relationships, and thus reflect the simulated evolution of physics phenomena in each collision event.

We present the HepMC3 library, a next-generation framework for MCEG event record encoding and manipulation, which builds on the functionality of its widely-used predecessors to enable more sophisticated algorithms for event-record analysis. As compared to previous versions, the event record structure has been simplified, while adding the possibility to encode arbitrary information. The I/O functionality has been extended to support common input and output formats of various HEP MCEGs, including formats used in Fortran MCEGs, the formats established by the HepMC2 library, and binary formats such as ROOT; custom input or output handlers may also be used. HepMC3 is already supported by popular modern MCEGs and can replace the older HepMC versions in many others.

Program summary

Program Title: HepMC 3

Program Files doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/6fpf82rp8b.1

Licensing provisions: GPLv3

Programming language: C++

Nature of problem: The simulation of elementary particle reactions at high energies requires to store and/or modify information related to the simulation.

Solution method: Provide a library that allows for manipulation and storage of information that origins from in the simulations of elementary particle reactions at high energies and can be interfaced to the modern Monte Carlo event generator software as well as to the particle detector simulation programs. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Original languageEnglish
Article number107310
JournalComputer Physics Communications
Volume260
Number of pages16
ISSN0010-4655
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2021

    Research areas

  • Event generator, Event record, Monte Carlo, MCEG, Particle physics, Collider experiments

Links

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