Efficient Forward-Mode Algorithmic Derivatives of Geant4
Computational Physics
2024-07-04 v1
Abstract
We have applied an operator-overloading forward-mode algorithmic differentiation tool to the Monte-Carlo particle simulation toolkit Geant4. Our differentiated version of Geant4 allows computing mean pathwise derivatives of user-defined outputs of Geant4 applications with respect to user-defined inputs. This constitutes a major step towards enabling gradient-based optimization techniques in high-energy physics, as well as other application domains of Geant4. This is a preliminary report on the technical aspects of applying operator-overloading AD to Geant4, as well as a first analysis of some results obtained by our differentiated Geant4 prototype. We plan to follow up with a more refined analysis.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2407.02966,
title = {Efficient Forward-Mode Algorithmic Derivatives of Geant4},
author = {Max Aehle and Xuan Tung Nguyen and Mihály Novák and Tommaso Dorigo and Nicolas R. Gauger and Jan Kieseler and Markus Klute and Vassil Vassilev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.02966},
year = {2024}
}