RivetThe Rivet project (Robust Independent Validation of Experiment and Theory) is a toolkit for validation of Monte Carlo event generators. Using an computationally efficient model for observable computations (known as the "projections" system), Rivet provides a set of experimental analyses useful for generator sanity checks, as well as a convenient infrastructure for adding your own analyses. Rivet's design emphasises the separation between HepMC records and where they came from, allowing it to be a completely cross-generator validation platform. Also emphasised is the avoidance of hard-coding reference data or histogram binnings in the analysis code: Rivet provides functions to extract this information from bundled data files, meaning that it is much easier to keep reference and generated data synchronised. Combined with AGILe, Rivet is an object oriented C++ replacement for the venerable HZTool/HZSteer system. 2009-06-09: Rivet release 1.1.3This release of Rivet adds more analyses, while also consolidating the software structures, improving the physics content and efficiency of projections, and overall making Rivet a more pleasant and richer platform for validation and tuning analyses. In particular, the addition of more metadata to analyses and histograms improves the output of Rivet and allows programmatic querying and generation of structured documentation: you'll notice the difference in the quality of the manual! The next intended version of Rivet will be 1.2.0, with which the code structures should be essentially stable and all development will be addition of more analyses. In the meantime, we intend to massively improve (simplify) our histogramming systems, and to make full automation of Rivet generator runs possible (a pipe-dream back when we started). Watch this space! 1.1.3 is now the version of Rivet recommended for public use. Please use it for your generator studies and make sure to send us your analysis code for a future release! More information on the status of the project, as well as a more detailed description and documentation, can be found via the links on the left. |