Running NUISANCE at Nevis

NUISANCE is a tool for comparing the output of different neutrino event generators, including GENIE, NuWro, and GiBUU.

Super-quick guide to running NUISANCE

Start from a clean login environment (no packages set up via module load or FNAL UPS). Use the following command:

source /nevis/amsterdam/share/seligman/microboone/nuisance/setup_nuisance.sh

Advice: Do not treat setup_nuisance.sh as a "mysterious black box" that does everything for you. Almost certainly as you work with NUISANCE you will have to adjust things to suit your task.

Assume you've run GENIE to generate events; e.g., the following will generate 100 1GeV ν_μ on Ar⁴⁰ events. The output will be in gntp.0.ghep.root.

gevgen -n 100 -p 14 -t 1000180400 -e 1 --run 100 \
   -f ${XSEC_PKG_DATA}/uB-flux.root,numu \
   --seed 2989819 --cross-sections $GXMLPATH/gxspl-FNALsmall.xml \
   --event-generator-list Default

NUISANCE requires that GENIE files get additional processing, using similar options used for the GENIE run; e.g., to process the output of the above gevgen command:

PrepareGENIE -i gntp.0.ghep.root -f ${XSEC_PKG_DATA}/uB-flux.root,numu -t 1000180400

Note that the PrepareGENIE command requires the same flux file and target(s) used to run GENIE. PrepareGENIE will modify gntp.0.ghep.root with additional spline information, so it needs write access to the file.

Now the NUISANCE commands can be used on the modified GENIE output file; e.g.,

nuisflat -i gntp.0.ghep.root -o nuisance-output.root

What next?

Consult the following for more information about running the event generators and NUISANCE. Warning: Ignore the instructions on how to install packages. Getting a consistent set of software packages in this suite (ROOT, GENIE, NuWro, GiBUU, NUISANCE) to compile and execute is a non-trivial task, and the installation directions in the following documents do not give all the steps necessary.

• A. Mastbaum's Draft paper on NUISANCE for MicroBooNE (Google Doc)
• Libo Jiang's talk on NUISANCE Status and plans (MicroBooNE DocDB)
• GENIE User's Manual on arXiv.
• A short PDF file on running NuWro.
• Running GiBUU on the GiBUU wiki.

If you have to recompile any of the above packages, I suggest starting with the setup_nuisance.sh script. WilliamSeligman included comments that indicate the differences between compiling the packages according to the directions and what's actually required. Note that if you recompile GENIE, you must also recompile NUISANCE since it calls GENIE routines directly.

Where to find things

Software	Location
ROOT	Set up by module load root
libxml2	Installed as part of Scientific Linux 6
log4cpp	Installed as part of Scientific Linux 6
LHAPDF	Installed as part of Scientific Linux 6
PYTHIA6	/usr/nevis/pythia6/v6_428/
GENIE	${XSEC_PKG_DIR}/genie
NuWro	${XSEC_PKG_DIR}/nuwro
GiBUU	${XSEC_PKG_DIR}/GiBUU
NUISANCE	${XSEC_PKG_DIR}/nuisance

GENIE also requires spline files which, in the configuration set up by setup_nuisance.sh, are stored in ${XSEC_PKG_DATA}. That location and ${XSEC_PKG_DIR} are defined in setup_nuisance.sh.