Physics vectors

The physics vector classes describe vectors in two, three and four dimensions and their rotation algorithms.

Design

In this package, a vector is built out of:

  • the container with N dimensions, for example LorentzVector
  • the coordinate system, for example PtEtaPhiM4D
  • the scalar type, typically float or double

The concrete vector type is a combination of the three ingredients, for example:

// PtEtaPhiMVector is a typedef to LorentzVector<PtEtaPhiM4D<double>>;
ROOT::Math::PtEtaPhiMVector v1(10. /*pt*/, 0.1 /*eta*/, 0.24 /*phi*/, 5 /*M*/);

For a full list of possible types and more details, please refer to the Reference Guide.

Operations

The vector classes provide functionality to express common arithmetic operations, such as adding two vectors and multiplication with a scalar:

using namespace ROOT::Math;
PtEtaPhiMVector v1(1, 2, 3, 4), v2(5, 6, 7, 8);
v1 += v2;
v1 *= 2;

For more details, please refer to the Reference Guide.

Transformations

The transformation classes are grouped into rotations and transformations such as Lorentz boost.

For example, a transformation of a LorentzVector works as follows:

LorentzRotation t(RotationX(M_PI));
PtEtaPhiMVector v3 = t(v1);

For the full list of transformations, please refer to the Reference Guide.