Tools for event generator tuning and validation

TL;DR

This paper reviews MCnet tools for validating and tuning event generator simulations, highlighting Rivet's validation capabilities and Professor's tuning improvements for Pythia 6, aiding LHC studies.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the current status and recent developments of Rivet and Professor tools for event generator validation and tuning.

Findings

Rivet is a mature validation toolkit with extensive benchmark analyses.

Professor has successfully tuned Pythia 6, improving upon default parameters.

Tuning tools have significant potential for setting up new generators for LHC research.

Abstract

I describe the current status of MCnet tools for validating the performance of event generator simulations against data, and for tuning their phenomenological free parameters. For validation, the Rivet toolkit is now a mature and complete system, with a large library of prominent benchmark analyses. For tuning, the Professor system has recently completed its first tunes of Pythia 6, with substantial improvements on the existing default tune and potential to greatly aid the setup of new generators for LHC studies.