Particle physics is living an exciting time. The Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is ongoing until the end of 2018, its Run 3 is expected to start in 2021 and the results to be collected promise a greater understanding of the Standard Model of particle physics and beyond. However, the exploration of the fundamental laws of Nature, beyond the Standard Model, depends on our ability to implement, in relevant simulation tools, any model physicists could dream of.
FROM EQUATIONS TO SIMULATIONS
[image credits: Stinging eyes (CC BY-SA 2.0)]
The FeynRules program has been developed in this context. Based on Mathematica, it allows to connect a Lagrangian, an equation containing in a non-ambiguous way the definition of a particle physics model, to numerical tools.
The strength of this approach is that a Lagrangian is a very compact and simple equation, and thus easy to implement or write down on a sheet of paper.
In contrast, numerical tools require to expand the Lagrangian into hundreds (sometimes thousands) of different particle interactions and implement them in a given programming language.
THE DRAWBACKS AND THE REASON FOR A NEW UTOPIAN.IO/STEEMSTEM PROJECT
[image credits: Simon Phipps (CC BY 2.5)]
Whilst FeynRules works very well, is open-source and is widely used in the high-energy physics community, it relies on Mathematica, a very expensive package.
The aim of this project is very simple: together with a team of developers to be formed, we will develop a Python version of FeynRules that anyone could run for free, without having to rely on a barely affordable framework.
The choice of the Python language is motivated by the fact that the UFO format, the standard way to share particle physics model information, already relies on the Python language.
Moreover, Python is widely used in high-energy physics, so that this choice ensures the best potential compatibility with existing frameworks.
IN PRACTICE
[image credits: Nick Youngson (CC BY-SA 3.0)]
This project is expected to run over the next 6 months. Well, more or less; we are not in a hurry but we hope to de able to deliver something soon as well too. Therefore, we will form the team quickly (this will take less than a week) and we will immediately start working.
The development will be divided in several big milestones, all of them involving discussions, brainstorming, as well as practical work.
More into details, the roadmap can be seen as follows.
- Discussion about the general infrastructure.
- Design of the input format, based on the FeynRules input format, and development of the corresponding readers.
- Design of internal tools allowing to connect a Lagrangian to factorized model information (particle content, model parameters, interactions, etc.).
- Design of algebraic methods allowing one to simplify the interactions as much as possible (aiming efficiency at the level of the simulation tools).
- Design of UFO writers.
- Test and validation.
Thanks to Utopian.io and SteemSTEM, all the work will be rewarded not only with STEEMs, but also with options to participate to particle physics workshops all over the world and to write (open access) scientific publications.