The data files are ordinary text files with a long list of “events”, proton-proton collisions whose spray of outgoing particles has been deemed sufficiently interesting by the (simulated) detector. Each event consists of a set of rows in the data file. Each row corresponds to an “object”: a lepton, photon, jet, or missing transverse momentum. More information about how objects are identified appears on the particle identification page.
Note the data format has changed since the Second LHC Olympics so be sure to read the following. The format for b-tagging has changed, the location of charge and some mass information have been adjusted, the default muon isolation cut has been removed, and some other details have changed as well. Thus some conversion of your old software will be necessary.
Note also that the definition of a jet has changed in the new version of PGS. Cone jets have been replaced with kT jets. This will affect the appearance of kinematic distributions compared to the earlier version used in prior Olympics.
# typ eta phi pt jmass ntrk btag had/em dummy dummy
The above is sufficient to specify the kinematic information in the event. One can make a lot of progress with just this information. We have output some additional information that can also be useful:
xxx.yy
. To the left of the decimal point (the ‘xxx’) is ptiso,the summed pT in a R=0.4 cone (excluding the muon). To the right of the decimal point is etrat, which is a percentage between .00 and .99. It is the ratio of the transverse energy in a 3×3 grid surrounding the muon to the pT of the muon. For well-isolated muons, both ptiso and etrat will be small. A typical event may look like
# typ eta phi pt jmass ntrk btag had/em dummy dummy 0 103 2563 this is event number 103, and its trigger word value is 2563 1 2 -1.219 4.739 449.95 0.11 1.0 0.0 12.15 0.0 0.0 a (positively-charged) muon with a pT of 450 GeV, ptiso= 12 GeV, etrat=0.15 2 4 -1.729 1.557 687.76 592.46 37.0 0.0 4.41 0.0 0.0 a jet with a pT of 688 GeV, invariant mass of 592 GeV, and 37 charged tracks 3 4 -0.829 2.540 67.26 20.33 5.0 0.0 3.55 0.0 0.0 a jet with a pT of 67 GeV, invariant mass of 20 GeV, and 5 charged tracks 4 6 0.000 4.857 275.16 0.00 0.0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.0 the "missing transverse energy" in the event is 275 GeV
Here is another one, probably containing jets from a b quark and an b antiquark (one jet is tagged with a displaced vertex, the other has a nearby soft muon)
# typ eta phi pt jmass ntrk btag had/em dummy dummy 0 5 3587 this is event number 5, and the trigger word is 3587 1 2 1.169 4.197 6.30 0.11 1.0 3.0 0.00 0.0 0.0 a muon with a pT of 6 GeV, the 3 in the b tag column tells you it is close to the third object 2 4 -0.121 1.278 330.12 206.58 6.0 2.0 3.50 0.0 0.0 a jet that passed a "tight" b-tag criterion 3 4 1.207 4.216 306.56 27.99 16.0 0.0 0.73 0.0 0.0 the jet that is close to the muon 4 4 -0.357 5.635 79.27 10.92 8.0 0.0 1.31 0.0 0.0 5 4 -0.965 4.076 17.42 7.24 3.0 0.0 0.63 0.0 0.0 6 4 -2.073 0.696 8.75 4.07 1.0 0.0 1.93 0.0 0.0 7 4 -3.717 1.975 6.81 2.30 1.0 0.0 0.15 0.0 0.0 8 6 0.000 1.926 12.42 0.00 0.0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.0
This event has an energetic electon and positron:
# typ eta phi pt jmass ntrk btag had/em dummy dummy 0 3 3599 1 1 -0.060 2.878 359.51 0.00 -1.0 0.0 0.02 0.0 0.0 electron 2 1 0.398 6.041 368.07 0.00 1.0 0.0 0.01 0.0 0.0 positron 3 4 3.516 4.651 25.72 36.62 5.0 0.0 1.44 0.0 0.0 4 4 -0.036 1.763 13.38 10.65 1.0 0.0 0.83 0.0 0.0 5 4 -2.793 3.500 12.06 7.75 5.0 0.0 12.24 0.0 0.0 6 4 1.068 1.243 10.00 4.53 3.0 0.0 7.71 0.0 0.0 7 4 -3.969 0.688 9.79 3.79 5.0 0.0 7.78 0.0 0.0 8 6 0.000 2.612 11.76 0.00 0.0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.0