Pinecards

Pinecards are a directory with several files that specify the configuration of the external program and thus which may differ largely. While the specific details are discussed on the dedicated pages, there are two common files, which we discuss here.

metadata.txt

This optional file collects all metadata, which is written into the grid after generation.

Arbitrary key=value pairs are supported, the most common are:

  • arxiv: The arxiv number of the experimental analysis, or if there are more than one, comma-seperated numbers.

  • description: A short description of the process/observables. Make sure to include the name of the experiment and the centre-of-mass energy.

  • hepdata: The DOI pointing to the experimental data, or a comma-separated list of DOIs. Preferably this points to specific tables of the observables specified below, as the hepdata entries usually show many of them.

  • nnpdf_id: The NNPDF ID, which can denote multiple datasets.

  • x1_label: The name of the first (x2 = second, x3 = third, …) observable.

  • x1_label_tex: The name of the observable, written in LaTeX.

  • x1_unit: The unit of the observable (typically GeV). If this key is not present, the corresponding observable is assumed to be dimensionless.

  • y_label: The label for the differential cross section.

  • y_label_tex: The label for the differential cross section, written in LaTeX. Use \frac{a}{b} instead of a/b for fractions.

  • y_unit: The unit for the cross section (typically pb for dimensionless observables, or pb/GeV or pb/GeV^2).

This key-value pairs are written into the final PineAPPL, to allow the user to easily identify what is stored in the grid and how it was generated. It also allows for easily plotting the contents of the grids.

Note

Further metadata are specific for each external, you can find them in the respective external page, in the section “Additional metadata”. Also the CLI itself will add more metadata, as is described here

postrun.sh

This is an optional BASH script which must be executable and which is run after the successful generation of the PineAPPL grid and can be used to perform additional operations, such as rescaling. The environment variable $GRID contains the relative path the PineAPPL grid. Typically, this file contains instructions to remap the one-dimensional histograms generated by MadGraph5_aMC@NLO into higher dimensional ones with the proper limits.