Joshua P. Isaacson

Hi! My name is Joshua Isaacson. I obtained my Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2017 with my thesis on the ResBos2 program. After obtaining my Ph.D. I went to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in the fall of 2017 as a Research Associate. During this time, we obtained a SciDAC5 grant for development of Neutrino and Collider computational tools (NeuCol). Currently, I am an Applications Physicist I at Fermilab.

My main research focuses on the development of theoretical-computational tools for both the LHC and neutrino experiments. My main projects include the Achilles neutrino event generator, ResBos2, the Sherpa collider event generator, and Pepper (the first ever platform-agnostic event generator).

I am also interested in developing machine learning tools to improve the performance of these tools and to address anomaly detection. This is mainly handled through the use of Normalizing Flows.

For additional details on my research, please see my publications.

Selected Publications

Revisiting Gauge Ambiguities for DUNE Precision

Joshua Isaacson

arXiv: 2502.08727 , Feb 2025

arXiv Bib

@article{Isaacson:2025lyx,
  author = {Isaacson, Joshua},
  title = {{Revisiting Gauge Ambiguities for DUNE Precision}},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {hep-ph},
  reportnumber = {FERMILAB-PUB-25-0059-T},
  month = feb,
  year = {2025},
}

Machine Learning Neutrino-Nucleus Cross Sections

Daniel C. Hackett , Joshua Isaacson, Shirley Weishi Li , and 2 more authors

arXiv: 2412.16303 , Dec 2024

arXiv Bib

@article{Hackett:2024dul,
  author = {Hackett, Daniel C. and Isaacson, Joshua and Li, Shirley Weishi and Tame-Narvaez, Karla and Wagman, Michael L.},
  title = {{Machine Learning Neutrino-Nucleus Cross Sections}},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {hep-ph},
  reportnumber = {FERMILAB-PUB-24-0948-T, UCI-HEP-TR-2024-25},
  month = dec,
  year = {2024},
}

JHEP

Event generation with Sherpa 3

Enrico Bothmann , and others

JHEP, Dec 2024

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{Sherpa:2024mfk,
  author = {Bothmann, Enrico and others},
  collaboration = {Sherpa},
  title = {{Event generation with Sherpa 3}},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {hep-ph},
  reportnumber = {IPPP/24/67, LTH-1385, FERMILAB-PUB-24-0748-T, ZU-TH 51/24, MCNET-24-17, CERN-TH-2024-171},
  doi = {10.1007/JHEP12(2024)156},
  journal = {JHEP},
  volume = {12},
  pages = {156},
  year = {2024},
}

Phys.Rev.D

Improving resbos for the precision needs of the LHC

Joshua Isaacson, Yao Fu , and C. -P. Yuan

Phys. Rev. D, Dec 2024

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{Isaacson:2023iui,
  author = {Isaacson, Joshua and Fu, Yao and Yuan, C. -P.},
  title = {{Improving resbos for the precision needs of the LHC}},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {hep-ph},
  reportnumber = {FERMILAB-PUB-23-322-T, MSUHEP-23-017},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevD.110.073002},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. D},
  volume = {110},
  number = {7},
  pages = {073002},
  year = {2024},
}

SciPost Phys

A Portable Parton-Level Event Generator for the High-Luminosity LHC

Enrico Bothmann , Taylor Childers , Walter Giele , and 3 more authors

SciPost Phys., Dec 2024

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{Bothmann:2023gew,
  author = {Bothmann, Enrico and Childers, Taylor and Giele, Walter and H\"oche, Stefan and Isaacson, Joshua and Knobbe, Max},
  title = {{A Portable Parton-Level Event Generator for the High-Luminosity LHC}},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {hep-ph},
  reportnumber = {FERMILAB-PUB-23-641-T, MCNET-23-18},
  doi = {10.21468/SciPostPhys.17.3.081},
  journal = {SciPost Phys.},
  volume = {17},
  pages = {081},
  year = {2024},
}

Phys.Rev.D.

Introducing a novel event generator for electron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus scattering

Joshua Isaacson, William I. Jay , Alessandro Lovato , and 2 more authors

Phys. Rev. D, Dec 2023

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{Isaacson:2022cwh,
  author = {Isaacson, Joshua and Jay, William I. and Lovato, Alessandro and Machado, Pedro A. N. and Rocco, Noemi},
  title = {{Introducing a novel event generator for electron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus scattering}},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {hep-ph},
  reportnumber = {FERMILAB-PUB-22-411-T, MIT-CTP/5428},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevD.107.033007},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. D},
  volume = {107},
  number = {3},
  pages = {033007},
  year = {2023},
}

SciPost Phys.

Event generators for high-energy physics experiments

J. M. Campbell , and others

SciPost Phys., Dec 2024

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{Campbell:2022qmc,
  author = {Campbell, J. M. and others},
  title = {{Event generators for high-energy physics experiments}},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {hep-ph},
  reportnumber = {CP3-22-12, DESY-22-042, FERMILAB-PUB-22-116-SCD-T, IPPP/21/51,
    JLAB-PHY-22-3576, KA-TP-04-2022, LA-UR-22-22126, LU-TP-22-12, MCNET-22-04,
    OUTP-22-03P, P3H-22-024, PITT-PACC 2207, UCI-TR-2022-02},
  doi = {10.21468/SciPostPhys.16.5.130},
  journal = {SciPost Phys.},
  volume = {16},
  number = {5},
  pages = {130},
  year = {2024},
}