Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

An introduction to PYTHIA 8.2

Sjöstrand, Torbjörn LU orcid ; Ask, Stefan ; Christiansen, Jesper Roy LU ; Corke, Richard LU ; Desai, Nishita ; Ilten, Philip ; Mrenna, Stephen ; Prestel, Stefan ; Rasmussen, Christine LU and Skands, Peter Z. (2015) In Computer Physics Communications 191. p.159-177
Abstract
The PYTHIA program is a standard tool for the generation of events in high-energy collisions, comprising a coherent set of physics models for the evolution from a few-body hard process to a complex multiparticle final state. It contains a library of hard processes, models for initial- and final-state parton showers, matching and merging methods between hard processes and parton showers, multiparton interactions, beam remnants, string fragmentation and particle decays. It also has a set of utilities and several interfaces to external programs. PYTHIA 8.2 is the second main release after the complete rewrite from Fortran to C++, and now has reached such a maturity that it offers a complete replacement for most applications, notably for LHC... (More)
The PYTHIA program is a standard tool for the generation of events in high-energy collisions, comprising a coherent set of physics models for the evolution from a few-body hard process to a complex multiparticle final state. It contains a library of hard processes, models for initial- and final-state parton showers, matching and merging methods between hard processes and parton showers, multiparton interactions, beam remnants, string fragmentation and particle decays. It also has a set of utilities and several interfaces to external programs. PYTHIA 8.2 is the second main release after the complete rewrite from Fortran to C++, and now has reached such a maturity that it offers a complete replacement for most applications, notably for LHC physics studies. The many new features should allow an improved description of data. New version program summary Program title: PYTHIA 8.2 Catalogue identifier: ACTU_v4_0 Program summary URL: http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ACTU_v4_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: GNU General Public Licence, version 2 No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 478360 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 14131810 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: C++. Computer: Commodity PCs, Macs. Operating system: Linux, OS X; should also work on other systems. RAM: 10 megabytes Classification: 11.2. Does the new version supersede the previous version?: Yes Catalogue identifier of previous version: ACTU_v3_0 Journal reference of previous version: Comput Phys. Comm. 178 (2008) 852 Nature of problem: High-energy collisions between elementary particles normally give rise to complex final states, with large multiplicities of hadrons, leptons, photons and neutrinos. The relation between these final states and the underlying physics description is not a simple one, for two main reasons. Firstly, we do not even in principle have a complete understanding of the physics. Secondly, any analytical approach is made intractable by the large multiplicities. Solution method: Complete events are generated by Monte Carlo methods. The complexity is mastered by a subdivision of the full problem into a set of simpler separate tasks. All main aspects of the events are simulated, such as hard-process selection, initial- and final-state radiation, beam remnants, fragmentation, decays, and so on. Therefore events should be directly comparable with experimentally observable ones. The programs can be used to extract physics from comparisons with existing data, or to. study physics at future experiments. Reasons for new version: Improved and expanded physics models. Summary of revisions: Hundreds of new features and bug fixes, allowing improved modelling. Restrictions: Depends on the problem studied. Running time: 10-1000 events per second, depending on process studied. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Event generators, Multiparticle production, Matrix elements, Parton, showers, Matching and merging, Multiparton interactions, Hadronisation
in
Computer Physics Communications
volume
191
pages
159 - 177
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • wos:000353083800017
  • scopus:84928671738
ISSN
0010-4655
DOI
10.1016/j.cpc.2015.01.024
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
9836def4-15df-43e2-89c4-fc3144e1629e (old id 5385966)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 14:11:21
date last changed
2022-12-27 08:01:46
@article{9836def4-15df-43e2-89c4-fc3144e1629e,
  abstract     = {{The PYTHIA program is a standard tool for the generation of events in high-energy collisions, comprising a coherent set of physics models for the evolution from a few-body hard process to a complex multiparticle final state. It contains a library of hard processes, models for initial- and final-state parton showers, matching and merging methods between hard processes and parton showers, multiparton interactions, beam remnants, string fragmentation and particle decays. It also has a set of utilities and several interfaces to external programs. PYTHIA 8.2 is the second main release after the complete rewrite from Fortran to C++, and now has reached such a maturity that it offers a complete replacement for most applications, notably for LHC physics studies. The many new features should allow an improved description of data. New version program summary Program title: PYTHIA 8.2 Catalogue identifier: ACTU_v4_0 Program summary URL: http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ACTU_v4_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: GNU General Public Licence, version 2 No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 478360 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 14131810 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: C++. Computer: Commodity PCs, Macs. Operating system: Linux, OS X; should also work on other systems. RAM: 10 megabytes Classification: 11.2. Does the new version supersede the previous version?: Yes Catalogue identifier of previous version: ACTU_v3_0 Journal reference of previous version: Comput Phys. Comm. 178 (2008) 852 Nature of problem: High-energy collisions between elementary particles normally give rise to complex final states, with large multiplicities of hadrons, leptons, photons and neutrinos. The relation between these final states and the underlying physics description is not a simple one, for two main reasons. Firstly, we do not even in principle have a complete understanding of the physics. Secondly, any analytical approach is made intractable by the large multiplicities. Solution method: Complete events are generated by Monte Carlo methods. The complexity is mastered by a subdivision of the full problem into a set of simpler separate tasks. All main aspects of the events are simulated, such as hard-process selection, initial- and final-state radiation, beam remnants, fragmentation, decays, and so on. Therefore events should be directly comparable with experimentally observable ones. The programs can be used to extract physics from comparisons with existing data, or to. study physics at future experiments. Reasons for new version: Improved and expanded physics models. Summary of revisions: Hundreds of new features and bug fixes, allowing improved modelling. Restrictions: Depends on the problem studied. Running time: 10-1000 events per second, depending on process studied. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.}},
  author       = {{Sjöstrand, Torbjörn and Ask, Stefan and Christiansen, Jesper Roy and Corke, Richard and Desai, Nishita and Ilten, Philip and Mrenna, Stephen and Prestel, Stefan and Rasmussen, Christine and Skands, Peter Z.}},
  issn         = {{0010-4655}},
  keywords     = {{Event generators; Multiparticle production; Matrix elements; Parton; showers; Matching and merging; Multiparton interactions; Hadronisation}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{159--177}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Computer Physics Communications}},
  title        = {{An introduction to PYTHIA 8.2}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2015.01.024}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.cpc.2015.01.024}},
  volume       = {{191}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}