How to Read LHC Olympics Data Files (by Jesse Thaler, 19 Dic 2006)

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.

Column Formats

   #   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:

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

Kinematics

  • pseudorapidity — “eta” is related to the angle “theta” relative to the beam axis via eta = -ln[tan(theta/2)]. For massless particles, eta is the same as the rapidity y.
  • azimuthal angle — the angle “phi” is the angle around the beam axis in cylindrical coordinates.
  • R — denotes the angular distance Sqrt[(eta2-eta1)^2+(phi2-phi1)^2] as measured in (eta,phi) space.
  • transverse momentum — components of the momentum orthogonal to the beam axis.
  • invariant mass — the root square of the sum of the four-momenta of two (or more) objects. The invariant mass of the jet is the root square of the sum of all the mini-object four-momenta. Note that this is generally much larger than the mass of the quark which generated it.