Diffraction in Pythia

TL;DR

This paper discusses the implementation of diffraction modeling in the PYTHIA event generator, integrating a Pomeron-based approach with standard PYTHIA features, and compares results with PHOJET.

Contribution

It introduces a new diffraction modeling approach in PYTHIA that is fully integrated with its existing machinery, enhancing simulation accuracy.

Findings

Diffraction is modeled using a Pomeron-based approach within PYTHIA.

Results are compared with the PHOJET event generator.

The implementation improves the realism of diffraction event simulations.

Abstract

The PYTHIA program can be used to generate high-energy-physics 'events' with sets of outgoing particles produced in the interactions between two incoming particles. The objective is to provide a representation, as accurate as possible, of event properties in a wide range of reactions. One such reaction, that is not well understood is Diffraction. Among the several alternative approaches that have been proposed, in PYTHIA, we follow a fairly conventional Pomeron based one, but fully integrated to use the standard PYTHIA machinery for multiple interactions, parton showers and hadronization. This note reports the development in PYTHIA in the way diffraction is modeled without providing specific details for usage. Results are compared with an alternative event generator called PHOJET. The code and further information may be found on the Pythia web page: http://home.thep.lu.se/~torbjorn/Pythia.html.