12 Search Results

The upcoming high-luminosity run of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) will yield an unprecedented volume of data. In order to process this data, the ATLAS collaboration is evolving its offline software to be able to use heterogeneous resources such as graphical processing units (GPUs) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). To reduce conversion overheads, the event data model (EDM) should be compatible with the requirements of these resources. While the ATLAS EDM has long allowed representing data as a structure of arrays, further evolution of the EDM can enable more efficient sharing of data between CPU and GPU resources. Somemore » of this work will be summarized here, including extensions to allow controlling how memory for event data is allocated and the implementation of jagged vectors.« less

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider explores the use of modern neural networks for a multi-dimensional calibration of its calorimeter signal defined by clusters of topologically connected cells (topo-clusters). The Bayesian neural network (BNN) approach not only yields a continuous and smooth calibration function that improves performance relative to the standard calibration but also provides uncertainties on the calibrated energies for each topo-cluster. The results obtained by using a trained BNN are compared to the standard local hadronic calibration and to a calibration provided by training a deep neural network. The uncertainties predicted by the BNN are interpretedmore » in the context of a fractional contribution to the systematic uncertainties of the trained calibration. They are also compared to uncertainty predictions obtained from an alternative estimator employing repulsive ensembles.« less

For Run 3, ATLAS redesigned its offline software, Athena, so that the main workflows run completely multithreaded. The resulting substantial reduction in the overall memory requirements allows for better use of machines with many cores. This note will discuss the performance achieved by the multithreaded reconstruction, the process of migrating the large ATLAS code base, and tools and techniques that were useful in debugging threading-related problems.

With an increased dataset obtained during the Run 3 of the LHC at CERN and the even larger expected increase of the dataset by more than one order of magnitude for the HL-LHC, the ATLAS experiment is reaching the limits of the current data processing model in terms of traditional CPU resources based on x86_64 architectures and an extensive program for software upgrades towards the HL-LHC has been set up. The ARM architecture is becoming a competitive and energy efficient alternative. Some surveys indicate its increased presence in HPCs and commercial clouds, and some WLCG sites have expressed their interest.more » Chip makers are also developing their next generation solutions on ARM architectures, sometimes combining ARM and GPU processors in the same chip. Consequently it is important that the ATLAS software embraces the change and is able to successfully exploit this architecture. We report on the successful porting to ARM of the Athena software framework, which is used by ATLAS for both online and offline computing operations. Furthermore we report on the successful validation of simulation workflows running on ARM resources. For this we have set up an ATLAS Grid site using ARM compatible middleware and containers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) ARM resources. The ARM version of Athena is fully integrated in the regular software build system and distributed in the same way as other software releases. In addition, the workflows have been integrated into the HEPscore benchmark suite which is the planned WLCG wide replacement of the HepSpec06 benchmark used for Grid site pledges. In the overall porting process we have used resources on AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and CERN. A performance comparison of different architectures and resources will be discussed.« less

The workshop “Shedding light on X17” brings together scientists looking for the existence of a possible new light particle, often referred to as X17. This hypothetical particle can explain the resonant structure observed at ~ 17 MeV in the invariant mass of electron-positron pairs, produced after excitation of nuclei such as ⁸Be and ⁴He by means of proton beams at the Atomki Laboratory in Debrecen. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss implications of this anomaly, in particular theoretical interpretations as well as present and future experiments aiming at confirming the result and/or at providing experimental evidence for itsmore » interpretation.« less

Abstract The reconstruction of the trajectories of charged particles, or track reconstruction, is a key computational challenge for particle and nuclear physics experiments. While the tuning of track reconstruction algorithms can depend strongly on details of the detector geometry, the algorithms currently in use by experiments share many common features. At the same time, the intense environment of the High-Luminosity LHC accelerator and other future experiments is expected to put even greater computational stress on track reconstruction software, motivating the development of more performant algorithms. We present here A Common Tracking Software (ACTS) toolkit, which draws on the experience withmore » track reconstruction algorithms in the ATLAS experiment and presents them in an experiment-independent and framework-independent toolkit. It provides a set of high-level track reconstruction tools which are agnostic to the details of the detection technologies and magnetic field configuration and tested for strict thread-safety to support multi-threaded event processing. We discuss the conceptual design and technical implementation of ACTS, selected applications and performance of ACTS, and the lessons learned.« less

This paper presents updated Monte Carlo configurations used to model the production of single electroweak vector bosons (W, Z/γ$$^{∗}$$) in association with jets in proton-proton collisions for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Improvements pertaining to the electroweak input scheme, parton-shower splitting kernels and scale-setting scheme are shown for multi-jet merged configurations accurate to next-to-leading order in the strong and electroweak couplings. The computational resources required for these set-ups are assessed, and approximations are introduced resulting in a factor three reduction of the per-event CPU time without affecting the physics modelling performance. Continuous statistical enhancement techniques are introducedmore » by ATLAS in order to populate low cross-section regions of phase space and are shown to match or exceed the generated effective luminosity. This, together with the lower per-event CPU time, results in a 50% reduction in the required computing resources compared to a legacy set-up previously used by the ATLAS collaboration. The set-ups described in this paper will be used for future ATLAS analyses and lay the foundation for the next generation of Monte Carlo predictions for single vector-boson plus jets production.[graphic not available: see fulltext]« less

The semiconductor tracker (SCT) is one of the tracking systems for charged particles in the ATLAS detector. It consists of 4088 silicon strip sensor modules. During Run 2 (2015–2018) the Large Hadron Collider delivered an integrated luminosity of 156 fb^₋1 to the ATLAS experiment at a centre-of-mass proton-proton collision energy of 13 TeV. The instantaneous luminosity and pile-up conditions were far in excess of those assumed in the original design of the SCT detector. Due to improvements to the data acquisition system, the SCT operated stably throughout Run 2. It was available for 99.9% of the integrated luminosity and achievedmore » a data-quality efficiency of 99.85%. Detailed studies have been made of the leakage current in SCT modules and the evolution of the full depletion voltage, which are used to study the impact of radiation damage to the modules.« less

The combination of measurements of the W boson polarization in top quark decays performed by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations is presented. The measurements are based on proton-proton collision data produced at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 20 fb$$^{−1}$$ for each experiment. The measurements used events containing one lepton and having different jet multiplicities in the final state. The results are quoted as fractions of W bosons with longitudinal (F$$_{0}$$), left-handed (F$$_{L}$$), or right-handed (F$$_{R}$$) polarizations. The resulting combined measurements of the polarization fractions are F$$_{0}$$ = 0.693more » ± 0.014 and F$$_{L}$$ = 0.315 ± 0.011. The fraction F$$_{R}$$ is calculated from the unitarity constraint to be F$$_{R}$$ = −0.008 ± 0.007. These results are in agreement with the standard model predictions at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics and represent an improvement in precision of 25 (29)% for F$$_{0}$$ (F$$_{L}$$) with respect to the most precise single measurement. A limit on anomalous right-handed vector (V$$_{R}$$), and left- and right-handed tensor (g$$_{L}$$, g$$_{R}$$) tWb couplings is set while fixing all others to their standard model values. The allowed regions are [−0.11, 0.16] for V$$_{R}$$, [−0.08, 0.05] for g$$_{L}$$, and [−0.04, 0.02] for g$$_{R}$$, at 95% confidence level. Limits on the corresponding Wilson coefficients are also derived.[graphic not available: see fulltext]« less

This paper presents the combinations of single-top-quark production cross-section measurements by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations, using data from LHC proton-proton collisions at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 and 8 TeV corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1.17 to 5.1 fb$$^{−1}$$ at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 TeV and 12.2 to 20.3 fb$$^{−1}$$ at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV. These combinations are performed per centre-of-mass energy and for each production mode: t-channel, tW, and s-channel. The combined t-channel cross-sections are 67.5 ± 5.7 pb and 87.7 ± 5.8 pb at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 and 8 TeV respectively. Themore » combined tW cross-sections are 16.3 ± 4.1 pb and 23.1 ± 3.6 pb at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 and 8 TeV respectively. For the s-channel cross-section, the combination yields 4.9 ± 1.4 pb at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV. The square of the magnitude of the CKM matrix element V$$_{tb}$$ multiplied by a form factor f$$_{LV}$$ is determined for each production mode and centre-of-mass energy, using the ratio of the measured cross-section to its theoretical prediction. It is assumed that the top-quark-related CKM matrix elements obey the relation |V$$_{td}$$|, |V$$_{ts}$$| ≪ |V$$_{tb}$$|. All the |f$$_{LV}$$V$$_{tb}$$|$$^{2}$$ determinations, extracted from individual ratios at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 and 8 TeV, are combined, resulting in |f$$_{LV}$$V$$_{tb}$$| = 1.02 ± 0.04 (meas.) ± 0.02 (theo.). All combined measurements are consistent with their corresponding Standard Model predictions.« less