Simulations are key to particle-physics research: many modern theoretical models have such complex consequences that we test theory not by comparing measurements of particle collisions to predicted functional forms, but by generating simulated collision-events from the theory and analyzing them identically to the real ones from the particle collider.
This means that event generators are incredibly important to particle physics, as the most-used link between experiment and theory, and as a crucial data format for exchange of ideas. They are also an excellent way to introduce new researchers and the public to particle-physics concepts. However, the toolset for MC event manipulation and visualisation is less powerful and coherent than it should be, and this project seeks to improve that situation!
This project will pick up old ideas and code for MC-event visualisation – both of the interaction graph that illustrates the internal theory computation, and the external appearance of the resulting collision decay-products – and produce a new set of tools useful both to physicists and for public outreach.