Simulating the Time Projection Chamber responses at the MPD detector using Generative Adversarial Networks

High energy physics experiments rely heavily on the detailed detector simulation models in many tasks. Running these detailed models typically requires a notable amount of the computing time available to the experiments. In this work, we demonstrate a novel approach to speed up the simulation of the Time Projection Chamber tracker of the MPD experiment at the NICA accelerator complex. Our method is based on a Generative Adversarial Network - a deep learning technique allowing for implicit non-parametric estimation of the population distribution for a given set of objects. This approach lets us learn and then sample from the distribution of raw detector responses, conditioned on the parameters of the charged particle tracks. To evaluate the quality of the proposed model, we integrate it into the MPD software stack and demonstrate that it produces high-quality events similar to the detailed simulator, with a speed-up of at least an order of magnitude.