High-Energy-Physics Event Generation with PYTHIA 6.1

Abstract

PYTHIA version 6 represents a merger of the PYTHIA 5, JETSET 7 and SPYTHIA programs, with many improvements. It can be used to generate high-energy-physics `events', i.e. sets of outgoing particles produced in the interactions between two incoming particles. The objective is to provide as accurate as possible a representation of event properties in a wide range of reactions. The underlying physics is not understood well enough to give an exact description; the programs therefore contain a combination of analytical results and various models. The emphasis in this article is on new aspects, but a few words of general introduction are included. Further documentation is available on the web.