Simplified fast detector simulation in MadAnalysis 5

TL;DR

This paper presents a new simplified fast detector simulation tool integrated into MadAnalysis 5, enabling easier and efficient modeling of detector effects for collider event analysis with comparable accuracy to Delphes 3.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel detector emulator within MadAnalysis 5, supporting detector parametrization and integration with existing recasting infrastructure, enhancing usability and flexibility.

Findings

Predictions agree within 10% with Delphes 3 for various processes.

The new tool simplifies detector simulation with user-friendly Python commands.

The approach effectively models detector effects for collider analyses.

Abstract

We introduce a new simplified fast detector simulator in the MadAnalysis 5 platform. The Python-like interpreter of the programme has been augmented by new commands allowing for a detector parametrisation through smearing and efficiency functions. On run time, an associated C++ code is automatically generated and executed to produce reconstructed-level events. In addition, we have extended the MadAnalysis 5 recasting infrastructure to support our detector emulator, and we provide predefined LHC detector configurations. We have compared predictions obtained with our approach to those resulting from the usage of the Delphes 3 software, both for Standard Model processes and a few new physics signals. Results generally agree to a level of about 10% or better, the largest differences in the predictions stemming from the different strategies that are followed to model specific detector effects. Equipped with these new functionalities, MadAnalysis 5 now offers a new user-friendly way to include detector effects when analysing collider events, the simulation of the detector and the analysis being both handled either through a set of intuitive Python commands or directly within the C++ core of the platform.