Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction

Abstract We present an extension to the Pythia Monte Carlo event generator that enables simulations of collisions between a generic hadron beam on a nuclear target with energy variation in event-by-event basis. This builds upon Pythia ’s module for heavy ions, Angantyr, as well as previous work on s...

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Main Authors: Ilkka Helenius, Marius Utheim
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2024-11-01
Series:European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13543-6
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author Ilkka Helenius
Marius Utheim
author_facet Ilkka Helenius
Marius Utheim
author_sort Ilkka Helenius
collection DOAJ
description Abstract We present an extension to the Pythia Monte Carlo event generator that enables simulations of collisions between a generic hadron beam on a nuclear target with energy variation in event-by-event basis. This builds upon Pythia ’s module for heavy ions, Angantyr, as well as previous work on simulating hadron-proton collisions. As such, the extensions in this work are largely technical, except for a rudimentary model for hadronic fluctuations. With hadron-ion simulations, we implement an explicit vector-meson dominance (VMD) model that can be used to simulate interactions of hadronic component of real photons in photo-nuclear collisions. Such processes can be studied in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions and in the future also with the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider. Our work also has applications to hadronic showers, e.g. air showers initiated by high-energy cosmic rays. We first validate the VMD model by comparing to HERA photoproduction data on proton target. Then we apply this to generate events for ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and present the results corresponding to the event-selection criteria matching to a recent ATLAS analysis. We find that single-particle multiplicity and rapidity distributions are well in line with the measured ones. We also construct the Fourier coefficients from two-particle correlations for the simulated events and study whether the resulting azimuthal anisotropies are consistent with the ATLAS results.
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spelling doaj-art-628f3b4df49f45f2a787cffb2b3911ce2024-12-29T12:43:33ZengSpringerOpenEuropean Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields1434-60522024-11-01841111810.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13543-6Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproductionIlkka Helenius0Marius Utheim1Department of Physics, University of JyvaskylaDepartment of Physics, University of JyvaskylaAbstract We present an extension to the Pythia Monte Carlo event generator that enables simulations of collisions between a generic hadron beam on a nuclear target with energy variation in event-by-event basis. This builds upon Pythia ’s module for heavy ions, Angantyr, as well as previous work on simulating hadron-proton collisions. As such, the extensions in this work are largely technical, except for a rudimentary model for hadronic fluctuations. With hadron-ion simulations, we implement an explicit vector-meson dominance (VMD) model that can be used to simulate interactions of hadronic component of real photons in photo-nuclear collisions. Such processes can be studied in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions and in the future also with the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider. Our work also has applications to hadronic showers, e.g. air showers initiated by high-energy cosmic rays. We first validate the VMD model by comparing to HERA photoproduction data on proton target. Then we apply this to generate events for ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and present the results corresponding to the event-selection criteria matching to a recent ATLAS analysis. We find that single-particle multiplicity and rapidity distributions are well in line with the measured ones. We also construct the Fourier coefficients from two-particle correlations for the simulated events and study whether the resulting azimuthal anisotropies are consistent with the ATLAS results.https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13543-6
spellingShingle Ilkka Helenius
Marius Utheim
Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction
European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields
title Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction
title_full Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction
title_fullStr Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction
title_full_unstemmed Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction
title_short Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction
title_sort hadron ion collisions in pythia and the vector meson dominance model for photoproduction
url https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13543-6
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