English

Neural Network-Based Approach to Phase Space Integration

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2020-10-21 v3 High Energy Physics - Experiment Computational Physics Machine Learning

Abstract

Monte Carlo methods are widely used in particle physics to integrate and sample probability distributions (differential cross sections or decay rates) on multi-dimensional phase spaces. We present a Neural Network (NN) algorithm optimized to perform this task. The algorithm has been applied to several examples of direct relevance for particle physics, including situations with non-trivial features such as sharp resonances and soft/collinear enhancements. Excellent performance has been demonstrated in all examples, with the properly trained NN achieving unweighting efficiencies of between 30% and 75%. In contrast to traditional Monte Carlo algorithms such as VEGAS, the NN-based approach does not require that the phase space coordinates be aligned with resonant or other features in the cross section.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.11509,
  title  = {Neural Network-Based Approach to Phase Space Integration},
  author = {Matthew D. Klimek and Maxim Perelstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.11509},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

13+2 pages, 9 figures. v2: Improved discussion, one new figure. No changes to physics results or conclusions. v3: Minor clarifications and improvements to figures, plus one new figure. No changes to results or conclusions. Now 18 pages, 11 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:54:09.357Z