A Comparison of new MC-adapted Parton Densities

TL;DR

This paper compares various modern parton distribution functions integrated into Pythia8, highlighting their differences and impact on simulation accuracy against experimental data, with Monte Carlo-adapted PDFs showing notable improvements.

Contribution

It evaluates the performance of Monte Carlo-adapted PDFs versus traditional PDFs within Pythia8, providing insights into their relative effectiveness for collider simulations.

Findings

Monte Carlo-adapted PDFs outperform traditional PDFs in many observables

Significant differences observed between various PDF sets

Room for further refinement of PDFs to match experimental data

Abstract

A selection of the latest and most frequently used parton distribution functions (PDFs) is incorporated in Pythia8, including the Monte Carlo-adapted PDFs from the MSTW and CTEQ collaborations. This article examines the differences in PDFs as well as the effect they have on results of simulations and compare with data collected by the CDF experiment. Monte Carlo-adapted PDFs do a better job than leading- and next-to-leading order PDFs for many observables, but there is room for further improvements.