# A Comprehensive Evaluation of Generative Models in Calorimeter Shower Simulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12898 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12898/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Jun 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Flow Matching for Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02747/) (2022)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05600/) (2019)
- [An Introduction to Variational Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02691/) (2019)
- [Masked Autoregressive Flow for Density Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07057/) (2017)
- [Improving Variational Inference with Inverse Autoregressive Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04934/) (2016)
- [Flow++: Improving Flow-Based Generative Models with Variational Dequantization and Architecture Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00275/) (2019)
- [CaloGAN: Simulating 3D High Energy Particle Showers in Multi-Layer Electromagnetic Calorimeters with Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.10321/) (2017)
- [DiffDA: a Diffusion Model for Weather-scale Data Assimilation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.05932/) (2024)
- [Accelerating Science with Generative Adversarial Networks: An Application to 3D Particle Showers in Multi-Layer Calorimeters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.02355/) (2017)
- [Score-based Generative Models for Calorimeter Shower Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11898/) (2022)
- [Learning Particle Physics by Example: Location-Aware Generative Adversarial Networks for Physics Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.05927/) (2017)
- [CaloFlow: Fast and Accurate Generation of Calorimeter Showers with Normalizing Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05285/) (2021)
- [CaloFlow II: Even Faster and Still Accurate Generation of Calorimeter Showers with Normalizing Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.11377/) (2021)
- [CaloClouds: Fast Geometry-Independent Highly-Granular Calorimeter Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.04847/) (2023)
- [Evaluating generative models in high energy physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10295/) (2022)
- [CaloMan: Fast generation of calorimeter showers with density estimation on learned manifolds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15380/) (2022)
- [DCTRGAN: Improving the Precision of Generative Models with Reweighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03796/) (2020)
- [CaloClouds II: Ultra-Fast Geometry-Independent Highly-Granular Calorimeter Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.05704/) (2023)
- [Comparison of Point Cloud and Image-based Models for Calorimeter Fast Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04780/) (2023)
- [Calo-VQ: Vector-Quantized Two-Stage Generative Model in Calorimeter Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06605/) (2024)
- [CaloFlow for CaloChallenge Dataset 1](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.14245/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Conditioned quantum-assisted deep generative surrogate for particle-calorimeter interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22870/) (2024)
- [Learning to Validate Generative Models: a Goodness-of-Fit Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.09118/) (2025)
- [Generative diffusion model surrogates for mechanistic agent-based biological models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09630/) (2025)
- [ScatterPrism: convergence for generative simulation and inverse problems in particle and nuclear physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01313/) (2026)
- [Comprehensive reconstruction of collider events with hypergraph representation learning and graph-conditioned diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.18928/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The pursuit of understanding fundamental particle interactions has reached unparalleled precision levels. Particle physics detectors play a crucial role in generating low-level object signatures that encode collision physics. However, simulating these particle collisions is a demanding task in terms of memory and computation which will be exasperated with larger data volumes, more complex detectors, and a higher pileup environment in the High-Luminosity LHC. The introduction of "Fast Simulation" has been pivotal in overcoming computational bottlenecks. The use of deep-generative models has sparked a surge of interest in surrogate modeling for detector simulations, generating particle showers that closely resemble the observed data. Nonetheless, there is a pressing need for a comprehensive evaluation of their performance using a standardized set of metrics. In this study, we conducted a rigorous evaluation of three generative models using standard datasets and a diverse set of metrics derived from physics, computer vision, and statistics. Furthermore, we explored the impact of using full versus mixed precision modes during inference. Our evaluation revealed that the CaloDiffusion and CaloScore generative models demonstrate the most accurate simulation of particle showers, yet there remains substantial room for improvement. Our findings identified areas where the evaluated models fell short in accurately replicating Geant4 data.