Accelerated matrix element method with parallel computing

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cpc.2015.02.020
• Publication Date: 2015-02-27T07:15:38Z
• Authors: D. Schouten; A. DeAbreu; B. Stelzer
• Keywords: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology; High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); 0103 physical sciences; FOS: Physical sciences; Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph); Physics - Computational Physics; 01 natural sciences; High Energy Physics - Experiment

The matrix element method utilizes ab initio calculations of probability densities as powerful discriminants for processes of interest in experimental particle physics. The method has already been used successfully at previous and current collider experiments. However, the computational complexity of this method for final states with many particles and degrees of freedom sets it at a disadvantage compared to supervised classification methods such as decision trees, k nearest-neighbour, or neural networks. This note presents a concrete implementation of the matrix element technique using graphics processing units. Due to the intrinsic parallelizability of multidimensional integration, dramatic speedups can be readily achieved, which makes the matrix element technique viable for general usage at collider experiments.