Proton-Proton Collision Analysis Using Rivet*

Protons along with neutrons are contained in the nucleus of every atom and are themselves composed of smaller particles called quarks bound together by gluons. Confinement means that a quark has ever been observed in isolation and quarks only observed bound together to create particles like protons and neutrons. By colliding nuclei at sufficiently high energies, we are able to create extreme enough conditions in which the nuclei can melt into each other which frees the quarks from their gluon bindings called the quark-gluon plasma. Proton-proton collisions provide an important reference for these studies. Data from these collisions can be compared to Monte Carlo (MC) event generators using a program called Robust Independent Validation of Experiment and Theory (Rivet). A Rivet analysis for proton-proton collisions at sqrts = 7 TeV has been implemented and tested using PYTHIA and JETSCAPE as MC event generators. This is the first time JETSCAPE Monte Carlo has been used with Rivet and tests JETSCAPE’s simulations of proton-proton collisions.