Systematic Evaluation of Generative Machine Learning Capability to Simulate Distributions of Observables at the Large Hadron Collider

Monte Carlo simulations are a crucial component when analysing the Standard Model and New physics processes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This paper aims to explore the use of generative models for increasing the statistics of Monte Carlo simulations in the final stage of data analysis by generating synthetic data that follows the same kinematic distributions for a limited set of analysis-specific observables to a high precision. Several state-of-the-art generative machine learning algorithms are adapted to this task, best performance is demonstrated by the normalizing flow architectures, which are capable of fast generation of an arbitrary number of new events. As an example of analysis-specific Monte Carlo simulated data, a well-known benchmark sample containing the Higgs boson production beyond the Standard Model and the corresponding irreducible background is used. The applicability of normalizing flows with different model parameters and numbers of initial events used in training is investigated. The resulting event distributions are compared with the original Monte Carlo distributions using statistical tests and a simplified statistical analysis to evaluate their similarity and quality of reproduction required in a physics analysis environment in a systematic way.Comment: 28 pages, 22 figure