arXiv subjects

Christoph Paus

Publications and source records attributed to Christoph Paus.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Client-side transparent caching for remote ROOT data analysis

High-energy physics analyses often process the same data as physicists refine algorithms and test new ideas. With data increasingly read from remote storage, each iteration is subject to network latency and depends on network bandwidth and shared-storage throughput, which can vary substantially under load. We present uCache (xrd-ucache), a transparent client-side cache implemented as an XRootD client plugin that requires neither server-side deployment nor changes to analysis code. It uses local storage on the analysis machine as a cache layer between the network and memory. The cache stores only the data actually read by an analysis. It can also rebuild cached data into a branch-aligned, recompressed form, eliminating most of the input/output and decompression costs of subsequent passes. We benchmark the cache using the Analysis Grand Challenge top quark pair analysis on public CMS Open Data compressed with zlib and LZMA. Filling the cache adds essentially no overhead compared with a direct read. Subsequent passes are 1.6-8.8 times faster from the byte cache and 2.1-15.7 times faster from the recompressed cache. For a typical analysis, a 1 TB cache suffices for datasets of 10-20 TB. The largest improvements occur when the remote data source is heavily loaded or geographically distant.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2026

Toward a Measurement of the Higgs Boson Mass with Natural-Width Precision at FCC-ee

Higgs boson mass measurements with sub-10 MeV precision enable sub-percent determinations of Higgs boson couplings and prevent the Higgs boson mass from becoming a limiting input to electroweak fits. Probing the electron Yukawa coupling through resonant Higgs boson production requires a precision comparable to the Higgs boson natural width of approximately 4 MeV. Using the leptonic ZH recoil channels, we show that FCC-ee can reach a Higgs boson mass precision of 4 MeV, including statistical and systematic uncertainties, thereby enabling this unique measurement. We identify the detector and accelerator performance required to reach this precision.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

D$e^+e^-$ffusion: Capturing the Beam-Beam Physics of $e^+e^-$ Collisions with Diffusion Models

Beam-induced backgrounds at high-luminosity $e^+e^-$ colliders, such as the FCC-ee, are dominated by incoherent pair creation (IPC), and require computationally expensive simulations with dedicated Monte Carlo (MC) event generators. Reliable detector and machine-detector interface studies necessitate event samples that are several orders of magnitude larger than what is practically attainable with existing MC. To alleviate this bottleneck, we present D$e^+e^-$ffusion, a denoising diffusion probabilistic model that operates as a permutation-equivariant, set-valued surrogate for fast IPC simulation. Trained on a small GuineaPig++ sample, D$e^+e^-$ffusion faithfully reproduces the marginal and joint kinematic, angular, and positional distributions of all three IPC production processes. In addition, we assess the fidelity at the detector level by propagating both Geant4 and D$e^+e^-$ffusion events through a Geant4 simulation of the CLD vertex detector and by training a transformer-based two-sample classifier; the classifier achieves an area under the ROC curve of $0.553 \pm 0.016$. The trained model generates events nearly four orders of magnitude faster than Geant4, paving the way for a fast-simulation surrogate for FCC-ee design studies.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Archi: Agentic Operations at the CMS Experiment

We present Archi, an open-source, end-to-end framework for scientific collaborations that combines the systematic ingestion and organization of heterogeneous data sources with the deployment of configurable, private, and extensible agents that retrieve and reason over them. An instance of Archi has been deployed for the Computing Operations team of the CMS experiment at CERN's LHC since February 2026 as a support agent for technical operators, offering retrieval and analysis capabilities by combining documentation, historical data, and live monitoring systems. We evaluate the system on operator feedback and a question set collected from production usage, graded by human and automated panels. The system proves effective at operational tasks, resolving real-world queries posed by CMS operators. We also observe that locally-hosted, open-weight models perform competitively, enabling fully private management of sensitive data.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Machine Learning on Heterogeneous, Edge, and Quantum Hardware for Particle Physics (ML-HEQUPP)

The next generation of particle physics experiments will face a new era of challenges in data acquisition, due to unprecedented data rates and volumes along with extreme environments and operational constraints. Harnessing this data for scientific discovery demands real-time inference and decision-making, intelligent data reduction, and efficient processing architectures beyond current capabilities. Crucial to the success of this experimental paradigm are several emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), silicon microelectronics, and the advent of quantum algorithms and processing. Their intersection includes areas of research such as low-power and low-latency devices for edge computing, heterogeneous accelerator systems, reconfigurable hardware, novel codesign and synthesis strategies, readout for cryogenic or high-radiation environments, and analog computing. This white paper presents a community-driven vision to identify and prioritize research and development opportunities in hardware-based ML systems and corresponding physics applications, contributing towards a successful transition to the new data frontier of fundamental science.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2025

Model-independent ZH production cross section at FCC-ee

This paper presents prospects for measuring the model-independent $ZH$ production cross section at the FCC-ee using the recoil-mass method at center-of-mass energies of 240 GeV and 365 GeV. Analyses are carried out in the muon, electron, and hadronic decay modes of the associated $Z$ boson. The event selections rely primarily on the kinematics of the reconstructed $Z$ decay products, ensuring maximal independence from specific Higgs boson decay modes, while multivariate techniques are employed to further enhance sensitivity. The statistical interpretation of the leptonic and hadronic final states at 240 GeV, with an integrated luminosity of 10.8 ab$^{-1}$, yields relative precisions of 0.52% for the combined leptonic channels and 0.38% for the hadronic channel. Their full statistical combination leads to total uncertainties of 0.31% at 240 GeV and 0.52% at 365 GeV, the latter assuming an integrated luminosity of 3.12 ab$^{-1}$. Dedicated statistical tests demonstrate model independence at the level of the obtained precision. This study presents the first consistent and combined analysis of the leptonic and hadronic final states for a model-independent $ZH$ cross-section measurement at a future lepton collider, using a unified workflow and covering both $\sqrt{s}=240$ and 365 GeV. It provides the most precise expected measurement of the $ZH$ production cross section at future lepton colliders, with the degree of model independence demonstrated within the achieved statistical precision.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2025

SubMIT: A Physics Analysis Facility at MIT

The recently completed SubMIT platform is a small set of servers that provide interactive access to substantial data samples at high speeds, enabling sophisticated data analyses with very fast turnaround times. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates massive processing resources for large-scale tasks by connecting to a set of powerful batch processing systems. It serves as an ideal prototype for an Analysis Facility tailored to meet the demanding data and computational requirements anticipated during the High-Luminosity phase of the Large Hadron Collider. The key features that make this facility so powerful include highly optimized data access with a minimum of 100Gbps networking per server, a large managed NVMe storage system, and a substantial spinning-disk Ceph file system. The platform integrates a diverse set of high multicore CPU machines for tasks benefiting from the multithreading and GPU resources for example for neural network training. SubMIT also provides and supports a flexible environment for users to manage their own software needs for example by using containers. This article describes the facility, its users, and a few complementary, generic and real-life analyses that are used to benchmark its various capabilities.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2022

Pile-Up Mitigation using Attention

Particle production from secondary proton-proton collisions, commonly referred to as pile-up, impair the sensitivity of both new physics searches and precision measurements at LHC experiments. We propose a novel algorithm, PUMA, for identifying pile-up objects with the help of deep neural networks based on sparse transformers. These attention mechanisms were developed for natural language processing but have become popular in other applications. In a realistic detector simulation, our method outperforms classical benchmark algorithms for pile-up mitigation in key observables. It provides a perspective for mitigating the effects of pile-up in the high luminosity era of the LHC, where up to 200 proton-proton collisions are expected to occur simultaneously.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2022

Theory, phenomenology, and experimental avenues for dark showers: a Snowmass 2021 report

In this work, we consider the case of a strongly coupled dark/hidden sector, which extends the Standard Model (SM) by adding an additional non-Abelian gauge group. These extensions generally contain matter fields, much like the SM quarks, and gauge fields similar to the SM gluons. We focus on the exploration of such sectors where the dark particles are produced at the LHC through a portal and undergo rapid hadronization within the dark sector before decaying back, at least in part and potentially with sizeable lifetimes, to SM particles, giving a range of possibly spectacular signatures such as emerging or semi-visible jets. Other, non-QCD-like scenarios leading to soft unclustered energy patterns or glueballs are also discussed. After a review of the theory, existing benchmarks and constraints, this work addresses how to build consistent benchmarks from the underlying physical parameters and present new developments for the PYTHIA Hidden Valley module, along with jet substructure studies. Finally, a series of improved search strategies is presented in order to pave the way for a better exploration of the dark showers at the LHC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Strategy for Understanding the Higgs Physics: The Cool Copper Collider

A program to build a lepton-collider Higgs factory, to precisely measure the couplings of the Higgs boson to other particles, followed by a higher energy run to establish the Higgs self-coupling and expand the new physics reach, is widely recognized as a primary focus of modern particle physics. We propose a strategy that focuses on a new technology and preliminary estimates suggest that can lead to a compact, affordable machine. New technology investigations will provide much needed enthusiasm for our field, resulting in trained workforce. This cost-effective, compact design, with technologies useful for a broad range of other accelerator applications, could be realized as a project in the US. Its technology innovations, both in the accelerator and the detector, will offer unique and exciting opportunities to young scientists. Moreover, cost effective compact designs, broadly applicable to other fields of research, are more likely to obtain financial support from our funding agencies.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2021

Dynamo -- Handling Scientific Data Across Sites and Storage Media

Dynamo is a full-stack software solution for scientific data management. Dynamo's architecture is modular, extensible, and customizable, making the software suitable for managing data in a wide range of installation scales, from a few terabytes stored at a single location to hundreds of petabytes distributed across a worldwide computing grid. This article documents the core system design of Dynamo and describes the applications that implement various data management tasks. A brief report is also given on the operational experiences of the system at the CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and at a small scale analysis facility.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2018

The CMS Data Acquisition System for the Phase-2 Upgrade

During the third long shutdown of the CERN Large Hadron Collider, the CMS Detector will undergo a major upgrade to prepare for Phase-2 of the CMS physics program, starting around 2026. The upgraded CMS detector will be read out at an unprecedented data rate of up to 50 Tb/s with an event rate of 750 kHz, selected by the level-1 hardware trigger, and an average event size of 7.4 MB. Complete events will be analyzed by the High-Level Trigger (HLT) using software algorithms running on standard processing nodes, potentially augmented with hardware accelerators. Selected events will be stored permanently at a rate of up to 7.5 kHz for offline processing and analysis. This paper presents the baseline design of the DAQ and HLT systems for Phase-2, taking into account the projected evolution of high speed network fabrics for event building and distribution, and the anticipated performance of general purpose CPU. In addition, some opportunities offered by reading out and processing parts of the detector data at the full LHC bunch crossing rate (40 MHz) are discussed.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

HEP Software Foundation Community White Paper Working Group - Data Analysis and Interpretation

At the heart of experimental high energy physics (HEP) is the development of facilities and instrumentation that provide sensitivity to new phenomena. Our understanding of nature at its most fundamental level is advanced through the analysis and interpretation of data from sophisticated detectors in HEP experiments. The goal of data analysis systems is to realize the maximum possible scientific potential of the data within the constraints of computing and human resources in the least time. To achieve this goal, future analysis systems should empower physicists to access the data with a high level of interactivity, reproducibility and throughput capability. As part of the HEP Software Foundation Community White Paper process, a working group on Data Analysis and Interpretation was formed to assess the challenges and opportunities in HEP data analysis and develop a roadmap for activities in this area over the next decade. In this report, the key findings and recommendations of the Data Analysis and Interpretation Working Group are presented.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2015

Dark Matter Benchmark Models for Early LHC Run-2 Searches: Report of the ATLAS/CMS Dark Matter Forum

This document is the final report of the ATLAS-CMS Dark Matter Forum, a forum organized by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations with the participation of experts on theories of Dark Matter, to select a minimal basis set of dark matter simplified models that should support the design of the early LHC Run-2 searches. A prioritized, compact set of benchmark models is proposed, accompanied by studies of the parameter space of these models and a repository of generator implementations. This report also addresses how to apply the Effective Field Theory formalism for collider searches and present the results of such interpretations.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2009

Commissioning of the CMS High Level Trigger

The CMS experiment will collect data from the proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at a centre-of-mass energy up to 14 TeV. The CMS trigger system is designed to cope with unprecedented luminosities and LHC bunch-crossing rates up to 40 MHz. The unique CMS trigger architecture only employs two trigger levels. The Level-1 trigger is implemented using custom electronics, while the High Level Trigger (HLT) is based on software algorithms running on a large cluster of commercial processors, the Event Filter Farm. We present the major functionalities of the CMS High Level Trigger system as of the starting of LHC beams operations in September 2008. The validation of the HLT system in the online environment with Monte Carlo simulated data and its commissioning during cosmic rays data taking campaigns are discussed in detail. We conclude with the description of the HLT operations with the first circulating LHC beams before the incident occurred the 19th September 2008.

physics.ins-det↗