2021/12/23 by Sebastian Macaluso, K. Cranmer, Macaluso, Sebastian +1
Computer Science · #Advanced Data Storage Technologies #Algorithms and Data Compression #Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms #Data Structures and Algorithms (cs.DS) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2112.12795
openalex publication_date 2021/12/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Simulations of high-energy particle collisions, such as those used at the Large Hadron Collider, are based on quantum field theory; however, many approximations are made in practice. For example, the simulation of the parton shower, which gives rise to objects called `jets', is based on a semi-classical approximation that neglects various interference effects. While there is a desire to incorporate interference effects, new computational techniques are needed to cope with the exponential growth in complexity associated to quantum processes. We present a classical algorithm called the quantum trellis to efficiently compute the un-normalized probability density over N-body phase space including all interference effects, and we pair this with an MCMC-based sampling strategy. This provides a potential path forward for classical computers and a strong baseline for approaches based on quantum computing.