Geant4 tutorial course

Mar 25, 2024, 9:00 AM → Mar 29, 2024, 5:00 PM US/Eastern

CEBAF Center room F113 (Jefferson Lab)

Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility), Maurizio Ungaro (Jefferson Lab)

Jefferson Lab (Newport News, VA) is organizing a four day tutorial course based on Geant4 version 11.2.p01. It will cover all the application domains including high energy and nuclear physics, astrophysics and space engineering, medical applications, and newly arising industrial applications.

 

The lectures will cover all aspects of the toolkit of Geant4 version 11.2.p01 from basic installation through advanced topics including multithreading and variance reduction options, and will be interspersed with hands-on sessions that build a progressively more complex application extensible to real use. The course should be of interest both to complete novices and to those who already have some basic familiarity with Geant4. Participants are expected to have a reasonable knowledge of C++ and Linux OS in addition to basic radiation physics.

 

The tutorial starts in the morning of March 25^th, 2024 (Monday) and runs through the afternoon of March 28^th, 2024 (Thursday) with additional discussion sessions on March 29^th, 2024 (Friday) for selected topics. For those who are interested, a tour of the Jefferson Lab experiment facilities is conducted in the morning of March 29^th.

 

The capacity is limited to 60 on a first-come-first-served basis. This tutorial is in-person only and no remote participation is offered. The registration fee is $85 that should be paid as a part of the registration process. The fee covers refreshments for Monday through Thursday.

Monday, March 25

9:00 AM → 9:30 AM Registration

If you do not have a JLab ID badge, please enter the CEBAF Center (building 12) through the main entrance which faces the traffic circle. Then you must first sign in at the Welcome Desk located in the front atrium of CEBAF Center with your government-issued photo ID. Then follow the sign to the tutorial room F113.

9:30 AM → 11:00 AM Tutorial

9:30 AM Welcome and tutorial introduction

Speakers: Amber Boehnlein (JLAB), Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

9:45 AM Introduction to detector simulation

• Basics of Monte Carlo method
• Monte Carlo particle transport
• Variance reduction techniques

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

MonteCarloMethods.pdf

10:15 AM Kernel 1

• General introduction and brief history
• Geant4 license
• Geant4 kernel
• User classes

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Kernel1.pdf

11:00 AM → 11:20 AM break

11:20 AM → 12:30 PM Tutorial

11:20 AM User documents and examples

• User guides
• Basic, extended and advanced examples
• User forum and mailing list
• Code browser
• Technical forum

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

DocsExamples.pdf

12:00 PM User interface 1

• Basics of UI commands
• Macro file
• Alias and loop
• Some useful UI commands

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

UserInterface1.pdf

12:30 PM → 1:30 PM lunch break

1:30 PM → 3:00 PM Tutorial

1:30 PM Physics overview 1

• Introduction
• Overview of Geant4 physics
• Physics list

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

Physics1.pdf

2:00 PM Physics overview 2

• Process in Geant4
• Stepping mechanism
• Production threshold

Speaker: Mihaly Novak (CERN)

Physics_II_Process.pdf

2:30 PM Visualization

• Basics of visualization
• UI commands for visualization

Speaker: Maurizio Ungaro (Jefferson Lab)

visualization_jlab_march2024.pdf

3:00 PM → 3:20 PM break

3:20 PM → 5:30 PM Hands-on

3:20 PM Hands-on 1

• Confirming Geant4 installation
• Run Geant4 examples

The hands-on instruction is here.

Tuesday, March 26

9:00 AM → 10:30 AM Tutorial

9:00 AM Material definition

• Introduction
• Material definition
• NIST material database

Speaker: Mihaly Novak (CERN)

Materials.pdf

9:30 AM Geometry 1

• Introduction
• G4VUserDetectorDefinition class
• Solid and shape
• Logical volume
• Region
• Physical volume
• Palcement

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Geometry1.pdf

10:30 AM → 10:50 AM break

10:50 AM → 12:20 PM Tutorial

10:50 AM Geometry 2

• Various ways of defining physical volume -Parameterized volume
  -- Replicated volume
  -- Divided volume
  -- Nested parameterization
  -- Assembly volume
  -- Reflection volume
• Touchable
• Geometry checking tools
• Geometry optimization

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Geometry2.pdf

11:50 AM Analysis

• Introduction
• G4AnalysisManager
• Histogram, plot, n-tuple
• UI commands for analysis

Speaker: Maurizio Ungaro (Jefferson Lab)

analysis_jlab_march2024.pdf

12:20 PM → 1:30 PM lunch break

1:30 PM → 3:00 PM Tutorial

1:30 PM Scoring 1

• Built-in command-based scorers
• Box and cylindrical scoring meshes
• Assigning scorers to real-world volumes
• Probe scorers
• Filling histograms through scorers

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Scoring1.pdf

2:00 PM Physics overview 3

• Decay processes
• Optical photon and optical processes
• Phonons and channeling

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

Physics3.pdf

2:30 PM Primary particle

• Introduction
• Built-in primary particle generators
• Pre-assigned decay

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

PrimaryParticle.pdf

3:00 PM → 3:20 PM break

3:20 PM → 5:30 PM Hands-on

3:20 PM Hands-on 2

• How to define materials
• How to define a very simple geometry
• How to use command line scoring to record, store and display simulation results

The hands-on instruction is here.

Wednesday, March 27

9:00 AM → 10:30 AM Tutorial

9:00 AM Geometry 3

• Introduction to field
• Field implementation
• Field integration
• Customizing field integration

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

Geom3.pdf

9:30 AM EM physics 1

• Overview
• EM processes and stepping
• Multiple scattering and transportation
• Special EM topics
  -- EM models per region
  -- Atomic de-excitation
  -- Energy-loss fluctuation

Speaker: Mihaly Novak (CERN)

EM-I-II.pdf

10:30 AM → 10:50 AM break

10:50 AM → 12:20 PM Tutorial

10:50 AM EM physics 2

• Low-energy EM models
  -- Livermore, including polarized photon models
  -- Penelope models
  -- Ion ICRU’73 model
  -- Geant4-DNA processes and models (beyond physics)
  -- MicroElec processes and models
  -- Monash University models
• Physics list settings for low-E EM

Speaker: Mihaly Novak (CERN)

EM-I-II-MSC.pdf

11:40 AM Hadronic physics 1

• Introduction
• Cross-section and final state model
• Pre-compound and de-excitation models
• Cascade models
• QCD String models

Speaker: Maurizio Ungaro (Jefferson Lab)

hadronic_physics_1_jlab_march2024.pdf

12:20 PM → 1:30 PM lunch break

1:30 PM → 3:00 PM Tutorial

1:30 PM Hadronic physics 2

• Elastic processes and models
• Low-energy neutron and proton models
• Ion-ion physics
• Capture, stopping and fission reactions

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

HadPhys2.pdf

2:15 PM Scoring 2

• Introduction to detector sensitivity
• G4SensitiveDetector class
• Hits and hits collection
• Touchable
• G4HCofThisEvent class
• Accumulating scores for a run

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Scoring2.pdf

3:00 PM → 3:20 PM break

3:20 PM → 5:30 PM Hands-on

3:20 PM Hands-on 3

• Create a semi-realistic geometry
• Collect simulation output from sensitive detectors in hits
• Use the user event action to dump event information from hits on screen

The hands-on instruction is here.

Thursday, March 28

9:00 AM → 10:40 AM Tutorial

9:00 AM User interface 2

• UI overview
• Define UI command
• G4GenericMessenger class
• UI command in multithreaded mode

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

UserInterface2.pdf

9:40 AM Hadronic physics 3

• Gamma-nuclear models
• Lepto-nuclear models
• Radioactive decay

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

HadPhys3.pdf

10:10 AM Geometry 4

• GDML and CAD interface
• Parallel world and layered mass geometry
• Moving volume

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Geometry4.pdf

10:40 AM → 11:00 AM break

11:00 AM → 12:20 PM Tutorial

11:00 AM Event Biasing and Fast Simulation

• Event biasing overview
• Event biasing methods
• Fast simulation overview
• Fast simulation interfaces and example applications

Speaker: Dennis Wright (Geant4 AI)

EvtBiasFastSim.pdf

11:40 AM Kernel 2

• User limits
• Attaching user information to Geant4 classes
• Stacking mechanism

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Kernel2.pdf

12:20 PM → 1:30 PM lunch break

1:30 PM → 3:10 PM Hands-on

1:30 PM Hands-on 4

• How to define a user run class to accumulate quantities from different events.
• How to process this information to make a simple physics measurement using G4UserRunAction.
• How to store physics results on output files with g4analysis for post-processing analysis.
• How to modify physics list using constructors.

The hands-on instruction is here.

3:10 PM → 3:30 PM break

3:30 PM → 5:00 PM Tutorial

3:30 PM Choosing physics list

• Pre-packages physics lists
• Validation and geant-val
• Examples

Speaker: Mihaly Novak (CERN)

ChoosingPhysLists.pdf

4:10 PM Multithreading and heterogeneous computing

• Multithreading introduction
• Thread safety and race condition
• Geant4 multithreading models
• MPI
• Examples of Geant4 applications using GPUs
  -- Optical photon transport
  -- EM particle transport

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Multithread.pdf

4:40 PM Updating Geant4 installation

• Geant4 releases
• What to look for in the release note
• How to update

Speaker: Maurizio Ungaro (Jefferson Lab)

upgrading_jlab_march2024.pdf

4:55 PM Concluding remarks

Speaker: Dr Makoto Asai (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility)

Friday, March 29

9:00 AM → 12:00 PM Discussions on selected topics

9:00 AM → 12:00 PM Jefferson Lab tour

12:00 PM → 1:30 PM lunch break

1:30 PM → 4:30 PM Discussions on selected topics