Watts per event: evaluating Sustainability of HEP Event Generators beyond the LHC era
2026-07-06 • Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied how to make computer programs that simulate particle collisions more efficient and environmentally friendly. They used special software tools to test how well a program called HIJING++ runs on different computer processors. By adjusting how many tasks run at the same time, they found ways to save energy without losing performance. Their work helps make future physics research less resource-heavy and more sustainable.
Monte Carlo event generatorsHIJING++multithreadingCPU architecturesenergy efficiencyheavy-ion collisionscontainerizationhigh-energy physicscomputational performance
Authors
Szabolcs Molnár, Gábor Bíró, Gábor Papp, Gergely Gábor Barnaföldi
Abstract
The development, tuning and operation of Monte Carlo event generators beyond the LHC era require vast amount of resources. In this study we investigate the sustainability of these software with a containerized set of tools (named 77rev/propripy), by benchmarking the HIJING++ heavy-ion Monte Carlo event generator. We analyze the performance of various CPU architectures and show that by choosing the level of multithreading properly, the cost of event generation can be optimized. The presented approach can reduce the energy footprint of high-energy physics event generators and therefore alleviate the ever-increasing, ubiquitous computational challenges.