HepMC Interface

An interface to the HepMC Dob01 standard event record format has been provided by M. Kirsanov. The code is stored in include/Pythia8Plugins/HepMC2.h. To use it, the relevant libraries need to be linked, as explained in the README file. Only version 2.06 (or later) of HepMC is supported, by agreement with the LHC experimental community.

The (simple) procedure to translate PYTHIA 8 events into HepMC ones is illustrated in the main41.cc, main42.cc and main43.cc main programs. At the core is a call to the

 
HepMC::Pythia8ToHepMC::fill_next_event( pythia, hepmcevt, ievnum = -1)

which takes a reference of the generator object and uses it, on the one hand, to read out and convert the event record in pythia.event and, on the other hand, to extract and store parton-density (PDF), cross section and other information for the hard subprocess from pythia.info. There is also an alternative form that does not requires access to the full pythia object, but only the event record, at the expense of a reduced information storage, see below.

While PYTHIA always stores momenta in units of GeV, with c = 1, HepMC nowadays can be built either for MeV or GeV as default, a choice that can then be overridden on an event-by-event basis, see e.g. the main41.cc code. When filling the HepMC event record, PYTHIA will convert to the unit specified for the current HepMC event record.

Also for length units there are choices, and again the PYTHIA interface will convert to the units set for the HepMC event record. Here the mm choice of PYTHIA seems to be shared by most other programs, and is HepMC default.

The status code is now based on the new standard introduced for HepMC 2.05, see the Event::statusHepMC(...) conversion routine for details.

The current values from pythia.info.sigmaGen() and pythia.info.sigmaErr() are stored for each event, multiplied by 10^9 to convert from mb to pb. Note that PYTHIA improves its accuracy by Monte Carlo integration in the course of the run, so the values associated with the last generated event should be the most accurate ones. If events also come with a dimensional weight, like in some Les Houches strategies, this weight is in units of pb.

The public methods

Here comes a complete list of all public methods of the Pythia8ToHepMC class in the HepMC (not Pythia8!) namespace. the constructor and destructor take no arguments. convert a Pythia event to a HepMC one. Will return true if succeeded. the input Pythia generator object, from which both the event and other information can be obtained. the output GenEvt event, in its standard form. set the event number of the current event. If negative then the internal event number is used, which is incremented by one for each new event. if true then the input event is appended to the current HepMC event record, rather than starting a new one. the root particle that defines the new production vertex for the particles to be added in the append = true option. used to set the bar code when append = true. If positive then start from iBarcode itself, if negative then start from the current size of the HepMC event record, and if 0 then set all bar codes to vanish. convert a Pythia event to a HepMC one. Will return true if succeeded. the input Pythia event that is to be converted to HepMC format. the output GenEvt event, in its standard form. set the event number of the current event. If negative then the internal event number is used, which is incremented by one for each new event. pointer to the Pythia Info object, which is used to extract PFD values, and process and cross section information. Without such a pointer this information therefore cannot be stored, i.e. it is equivalent to the three set_store methods below being set false. pointer to the Pythia Settings object, which is used to decide whether hadronization is carried out, and therefore whether to warn about unhadronized partons. Without such a pointer the set_free_parton_warnings method below uniquely controls the behaviour. if true then the input event is appended to the current HepMC event record, rather than starting a new one. the root particle that defines the new production vertex for the particles to be added in the append = true option. used to set the bar code when append = true. If positive then start from iBarcode itself, if negative then start from the current size of the HepMC event record, and if 0 then set all bar codes to vanish.

The following paired methods can be used to set and get the status of some switches that modify the behaviour of the conversion routine. The set methods have the same default input values as the internal initialization ones, so that a call without an argument (re)stores the default. print a warning line, on cerr, when inconsistent mother and daughter information is encountered. check and throw an exception when unhadronized gluons or quarks are encountered in the event record. Does not apply when Pythia hadronization is switched off. Default is to do this check. If an exception is thrown the PartonEndVertexException class will return a warning message. The calling code can choose action to take, also having access to the location (index()) and species (pdg_id()) of a bad parton. the normal gluon identity code 21 is used also when parton density information is stored, unless this optional argument is set true to have gluons represented by a 0. This choice does not affect the normal event record, where a gluon is always 21. for each event store information on the two incoming flavours, their x values and common factorization scale, and the values of the two parton distributions, xf(x,Q). for each event store information on the Pythia process code, the renormalization scale, and alpha_em and alpha_s values used for the hard process. for each event store information on the Pythia cross section and its error, in pb, and the event weight. If events also come with a dimensional weight, like in some Les Houches strategies, this weight is in units of pb.