Metric Space of Collider Events

Area of Science:

• High Energy Physics
• Particle Physics
• Collider Physics

Background:

• The concept of similarity between collider events is fundamental but lacks a standardized metric.
• Existing methods often rely on specific observable choices, limiting general applicability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a general and robust metric for quantifying the distance between collider events.
• To establish a framework for data-driven collider phenomenology.

Main Methods:

• Developed a metric based on the Earth Mover's Distance, measuring the "work" to transform one event's radiation pattern into another.
• Explored connections between this metric and infrared- and collinear-safe observables.

Main Results:

• Introduced a novel metric for the space of collider events.
• Demonstrated the metric's ability to quantify event modifications from hadronization, pileup, and detector effects.
• Showcased new tools for analyzing and visualizing collider data independent of specific observables.

Conclusions:

• The proposed metric provides a powerful, observable-independent framework for collider data analysis.
• This approach facilitates data-driven collider phenomenology, reducing reliance on specialized observables or machine learning models.