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Gian Michele Innocenti

Publications and source records attributed to Gian Michele Innocenti.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
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↗
arXiv2026

Analysis note: Long-range near-side correlation in $e^+e^-$ with $W$-boson-pair events at 183-209 GeV with ALEPH archived data

Events characterized by a high multiplicity of charged particles have been a central focus in the study of collective behavior across both large and small collision systems. A previous measurement of two-particle angular correlations in $e^+e^-$ collisions at center-of-mass energies up to $\sqrt{s} = 209$ GeV, using LEP2 data, revealed discrepancies with Monte Carlo (MC) predictions at high multiplicity, suggesting the possible emergence of long-range near-side correlations even in the simplest collision system. Unlike at lower energies, where quark-antiquark production dominates, $W^+W^-$ processes become increasingly important at multiplicities above 30. On the one hand, the observed excess in long-range correlations may reflect the more complex color-string configurations arising from $W^+W^-$ production. On the other hand, it can simply arise from the higher final-state multiplicity made possible by the increased collision energy, independent of the underlying production mechanism. To discriminate between these competing interpretations, we present a measurement of two-particle angular correlations in $e^+e^-$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 183-209$ GeV, with a focus on enhancing the contribution from $W^+W^-$ processes. The analysis uses data collected by the ALEPH detector during the LEP2 program. Correlation functions are evaluated across a broad range of pseudorapidities and full azimuth, in bins of charged-particle multiplicity. A ridge-like modulation is seen for multiplicity above 50, deviating from the MC reference. In addition, the correlation functions are further decomposed into a Fourier series, and the resulting harmonic coefficients $v_n$ are compared with predictions from the archived Monte Carlo sample. For multiplicity starting from 30, the signed $v_2$-like proxy goes from negative to positive, also deviating from the MC baseline.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2026

Diffractive open charm photoproduction in ultraperipheral lead-lead and proton-lead collisions at the LHC

We calculate diffractive $D^{0}$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral lead--lead (Pb--Pb) collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) within the recently developed G$γ$A--FONLL framework, where photon--lead diffraction is modeled using nuclear diffractive parton distributions obtained in the leading twist shadowing approach and the photon fluxes include corrections for independent electromagnetic dissociation accompanying the hard photoproduction process. We then use the predicted diffractive cross section to quantify the coherent diffractive contribution rejected by the $Xn0n$ neutron-tagged event selection adopted in the first measurement of $D^0$ photoproduction in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, which requires neutron emission from only one of the two lead nuclei. In this work, we also extend the G$γ$A--FONLL framework to proton--lead ($p$--Pb) UPCs and present predictions for inclusive and diffractive $D^{0}$ photoproduction at the LHC. In this case, the dominant configuration is photon emission from the lead ion followed by photon--proton scattering, and the diffractive contribution is evaluated using proton diffractive parton distributions constrained by HERA data.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2025

Inclusive open charm photoproduction in ultraperipheral collisions at the LHC with G$γ$A-FONLL

We compute the inclusive $D^{0}$ production cross section in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC as a function of the $D^{0}$ transverse momentum and rapidity. These calculations are carried out within the new G$γ$A-FONLL (Generalized Photon-Nucleus FONLL) framework, which can predict photonuclear cross sections for charm and beauty hadrons in electron-proton, electron-nucleus, and ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions. The framework relies on FONLL (Fixed-Order Next-to-Leading Logarithm) to model heavy-quark production in photonuclear collisions and employs a photon-flux reweighting procedure to describe the production cross sections in ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions. The G$γ$A calculations are first validated against the photoproduction cross sections of $D^{*}$ in electron-proton collisions at HERA. The predictions for the $D^{0}$ production cross section in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC are then presented and compared to the first experimental results obtained by CMS at $\sqrt{\rm s_{NN}}=5.36$ TeV. The predictions are benchmarked against different choices of nuclear parton distribution functions, fragmentation functions, and renormalization and factorization scales.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2025

Energy Correlators from Partons to Hadrons: Unveiling the Dynamics of the Strong Interactions with Archival ALEPH Data

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is a remarkably rich theory exhibiting numerous emergent degrees of freedom, from flux tubes to hadrons. Their description in terms of the underlying quarks and gluons of the QCD Lagrangian remains a central challenge of modern physics. Colliders offer a unique opportunity to probe these phenomena experimentally: high energy partons produced from the QCD vacuum excite these emergent degrees, imprinting their dynamics in correlations in asymptotic energy flux. Decoding these correlations requires measurements with exceptional angular resolution, beyond that achieved in previous measurements. Recent progress has enabled precision calculations of energy flux on charged particles alone, allowing data-theory comparisons for measurements using high resolution tracking detectors. In this Letter, we resurrect thirty-year-old data from the ALEPH tracker, and perform a high angular resolution measurement of the two-point correlation of energy flux, probing QCD over three orders of magnitude in scale in a single measurement. Our measurement unveils for the first time the full spectrum of the correlator, including light-ray quasi-particle states, flux-tube excitations, and their transitions into confined hadrons. We compare our measurement with record precision theoretical predictions, achieving percent level agreement, and revealing interesting new phenomena in the confinement transitions. More broadly, we highlight the immense potential of this newly unlocked archival data set, the so called "recycling frontier", and emphasize synergies with ongoing and future collider experiments.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2025

Unbinned measurement of thrust in $e^+e^-$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 91.2 GeV with ALEPH archived data

The strong coupling constant ($α_{S}$) is a fundamental parameter of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong force. Some of the earliest precise constraints on $α_{S}$ came from measurements of event shape observables, such as thrust ($T$), using hadronic $Z$ boson decays produced in $e^+e^-$ collisions. However, recent work has revealed discrepancies between event-shape-based extractions of $α_{S}$ and values determined using other experimental methods. This work reexamines archived $e^+e^-$ data collected at a collision energy of $\sqrt{s}=91.2$ GeV by the ALEPH detector at the Large Electron-Positron Collider. Modern machine learning techniques are used to correct for detector effects in an unbinned manner, allowing the $T$ distribution to be measured with higher granularity than previous ALEPH measurements. The new measurement reveals a small but systematic shift towards larger values of $τ=1-T$, and the potential implications of this shift for $α_{S}$ extractions are illustrated by comparing to state-of-the-art theoretical calculations. In addition, the region of $-6<\logτ<-2$, where poorly-understood non-perturbative effects are large, is compared to modern parton shower Monte Carlo simulations. This measurement provides unique new inputs for $α_{S}$ extractions and also improves constraints on phenomenological models of QCD dynamics such as parton fragmentation and hadronization.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2025

Analysis note: measurement of thrust in $e^{+}e^{-}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 91 GeV with archived ALEPH data

A measurement of the thrust distribution in $e^{+}e^{-}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 91.2$ GeV with archived data from the ALEPH experiment at the Large Electron-Positron Collider is presented. The thrust distribution is reconstructed from charged and neutral particles resulting from hadronic $Z$-boson decays. For the first time with $e^{+}e^{-}$ data, detector effects are corrected using a machine learning based method for unbinned unfolding. The measurement provides new input for resolving current discrepancies between theoretical calculations and experimental determinations of $α_{s}$, constraining non-perturbative effects through logarithmic moments, developing differential hadronization models, and enabling new precision studies using the archived data.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2025

Analysis note: measurement of energy-energy correlator in $e^{+}e^{-}$ collisions at $91$ GeV with archived ALEPH data

Electron-positron ($e^+e^-$) collisions provide a clean environment for precision tests of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) due to the absence of hadronic initial-state effects. We present a novel analysis of archived ALEPH data from the Large Electron-Positron Collider at the $Z$ pole, leveraging energy-energy correlators (EECs) to study hadronic energy flow with unprecedented precision. The two-point EEC is measured as a function of the angular separation between particles spanning from the collinear to the back-to-back limits in a remarkably differential test of perturbative and non-perturbative QCD. The results are consistent with previous LEP measurements and provide significantly improved precision and finer angular binning resolution, especially at small angles and in the back-to-back limit. Comparisons with \textsc{pythia} 6 simulations show overall agreement, with deviations in key kinematic regions offering insights into hadronization. The measurement performed here connects to new opportunities for precision QCD studies in archived and future collider data.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2024

Long-range near-side correlation in $e^+e^-$ Collisions at 183-209 GeV with ALEPH Archived Data

The first measurement of two-particle angular correlations for charged particles with LEP-II data is presented. The study is performed using archived hadronic $e^+e^-$ data collected by ALEPH at center-of-mass energies up to 209 GeV, above the $W^+W^-$ production threshold, which provide access to unprecedented charged-particle multiplicities and more complex color-string configurations if compared to previous measurements at LEP-I energies. An intriguing long-range near-side excess is observed in the correlation function measured with respect to the thrust axis in the highest multiplicity interval $N_{\mathrm{trk}}\geq 50$. Such a structure is not predicted by the Monte-Carlo simulation. The harmonic anisotropy coefficients $v_n$, which result from the Fourier expansion of the two-particle correlation functions, were also measured for the first time in $e^+e^-$ data, and compared to PYTHIA6 predictions and to the results obtained in proton-proton collisions. The results presented in the Letter provide novel experimental constraints on the formation of collective phenomena in point-like $e^+e^-$ collisions.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2024

Analysis note: two-particle correlation in $e^+e^-$ collisions at 91-209 GeV with archived ALEPH data

The first measurement of two-particle angular correlations for charged particles produced in $e^+e^-$ annihilation up to $\sqrt{s}$ = 209 GeV is presented. Hadronic $e^+e^-$ data, archived at center-of-mass energies ranging from 91 to 209 GeV, were collected using the ALEPH detector at LEP between 1992 and 2000. The angular correlation functions have been measured across a wide range of pseudorapidities and the full azimuth in bins of charged particle multiplicity. This is the first such measurement using LEP-II data. With LEP-II data at 91 GeV, neither the beam coordinate analysis nor the thrust coordinate analysis reveals significant long-range correlations, consistent with the finding in the previous measurement with the LEP-I sample. Results for $e^+e^-$ data at energies above 91 GeV, which allow for higher event multiplicities reaching approximately 50, are presented for the first time. A long-range near-side excess in the correlation function has been identified in the thrust axis analysis. Moreover, the two-particle correlation functions were decomposed using a Fourier series, and the resulting Fourier coefficients $v_n$ were compared with event generator outputs. In events with high multiplicity, featuring more than 50 particles, the extracted $v_2$ and $v_3$ magnitudes from the data are higher than those from the Monte Carlo reference.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2023

The medium-modified $g\to c\bar{c}$ splitting function in the BDMPS-Z formalism

The formalism of Baier-Dokshitzer-Mueller-Peigné-Schiff and Zakharov determines the modifications of parton splittings in the QCD plasma that arise from medium-induced gluon radiation. Here, we study medium-modifications of the gluon splitting into a quark--anti-quark pair in this BDMPS-Z formalism. We derive a compact path-integral formulation that resums effects from an arbitrary number of interactions with the medium to leading order in the $1/N_c^2$ expansion. Analyses in the $N=1$ opacity and the saddle point approximations reveal two phenomena: a medium-induced momentum broadening of the relative quark--anti-quark pair momentum that increases the invariant mass of quark--anti-quark pairs, and a medium-enhanced production of such pairs. We note that both effects are numerically sizeable if the average momentum transfer from the medium is comparable to the quark mass. In ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, this condition is satisfied for charm quarks. We therefore focus our numerical analysis on the medium modification of $g\to c\bar{c}$, although our derivation applies equally well to $g\to b\bar{b}$ and to gluons splitting into light-flavoured quark--anti-quark pairs.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2022

Medium-enhanced $c\bar{c}$ radiation

We show that the same QCD formalism that accounts for the suppression of high-$p_T$ hadron and jet spectra in heavy-ion collisions predicts medium-enhanced production of $c\bar{c}$ pairs in jets.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2022

Jet energy spectrum and substructure in $e^+e^-$ collisions at 91.2 GeV with ALEPH Archived Data

The first measurements of energy spectra and substructure of anti-$k_{T}$ jets in hadronic $Z^0$ decays in $e^+e^-$ collisions are presented. The archived $e^+e^-$ annihilation data at a center-of-mass energy of 91.2 GeV were collected with the ALEPH detector at LEP in 1994. In addition to inclusive jet and leading dijet energy spectra, various jet substructure observables are analyzed as a function of jet energy which includes groomed and ungroomed jet mass to jet energy ratios, groomed momentum sharing, and groomed jet radius. The results are compared with perturbative QCD calculations and predictions from the SHERPA, HERWIG v7.1.5, PYTHIA 6, PYTHIA 8, and PYQUEN event generators. The jet energy spectra agree with perturbative QCD calculations which include the treatment of logarithms of the jet radius and threshold logarithms. None of the event generators give a fully satisfactory description of the data.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2019

Measurements of two-particle correlations in $e^+e^-$ collisions at 91 GeV with ALEPH archived data

Measurements of two-particle angular correlations of charged particles emitted in hadronic $Z$ decays are presented. The archived $e^+e^-$ annihilation data at a center-of-mass energy of 91 GeV were collected with the ALEPH detector at LEP between 1992 and 1995. The correlation functions are measured over a broad range of pseudorapidity and full azimuth as a function of charged particle multiplicity. No significant long-range correlation is observed in either the lab coordinate analysis or the thrust coordinate analysis, where the latter is sensitive to a medium expanding transverse to the color string between the outgoing $q\bar{q}$ pair from $Z$ boson decays. The associated yield distributions in both analyses are in better agreement with the prediction from the PYTHIA v6.1 event generator than from HERWIG v7.1.5. They provide new insights to showering and hadronization modeling. These results serve as an important reference to the observed long-range correlation in proton-proton, proton-nucleus, and nucleus-nucleus collisions.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2012

D+s production at central rapidity in pp collisions at 7 TeV with the ALICE experiment

We present the preliminary pt differential cross section in pp collisions of the D+s meson measured in the mid-rapidity region of ALICE with an integrated luminosity of 4.8 nb^-1. The ratios between all the D meson preliminary pt differential cross sections measured in the ALICE experiment (D+s,D0,D+,D*+) are also presented and compared with the results of other experiments.

hep-ex↗