Geant4 Advanced Course 2024 @ CERN

14 Oct 2024, 14:00 → 18 Oct 2024, 18:40 Europe/Zurich

593/R-010 - Salle 11 (CERN)

              

Tutorial on Geant4 for users interested to improve their understanding and usage of Geant4. Appropriate for creating intermediate and advanced applications in any domain, with emphasis on topics most relevant to experiments in High Energy or Nuclear Physics. This is a tutorial course based on Geant4 version 11.2.

Lectures will cover intermediate and advanced features of Geant4 starting from the basic building blocks covered in the beginners course, interspersed with discussion sessions.

The course is expected to be of interest to users with intermediate experience in Geant4 and familiarity with the toolkit. Participants are expected to have a reasonable knowledge of C++.

The course will be held in hybrid form, with both participation in person (limited) and online using Zoom (unlimited). A link to join will been provided to participants. Participation in person will require additional formalities to enter the CERN site. 

Lectures will be held from 14:00 to 18:00 CEST (Central European Summer time).

Pre-requisites: 

• Basic knowledge of the C++ language 
• Basic knowledge of MC simulation techniques
• Overview and knowledge of the Geant4 simulation toolkit, such as that obtained following the Geant4 beginners course or equivalent knowledge
• Intermediate experience in using the Geant4 simulation toolkit, from developing a new application using Geant4 or modifying an existing Geant4 application.

Objectives: 

• Acquire deeper understanding of particle transport Monte Carlo
• Acquire additional knowledge and experience in using the Geant4 simulation toolkit

 

Monday 14 October

14:00 → 14:10 Welcome and Practicalities

• Welcome to the course
• Practical aspects - Zoom, Mattermost, Questions, ...

Speaker: John Apostolakis (CERN)

14:10 → 14:25 Overview

• An overview of the topics covered in the course - and how they fit

Speaker: John Apostolakis (CERN)

14:25 → 15:20 Geometry - Part 1

• Basics 1: G4VUserDetectorConstruction class
• Basics 2: recalling what are solids(shapes), logical & physics volumes
• Introduction to the types of physical volumes: simple (Placements), and 'complex' ones (Replicated and Parameterised)
• 'Divided' volumes
• Touchables and Nested parameterisations
• Assembly volumes
• Reflected volumes

Speaker: John Apostolakis (CERN)

15:20 → 15:45 Break

15:45 → 16:35 Physics: particles and processes

• Particles
• Ions
• Processes
• What happens at a step
• Order of initialisation and execution
• Cuts
• How to prepare custom particle and process

Speaker: Vladimir Ivantchenko (CERN)

16:35 → 17:00 Multithreading - I

• Introduction to multithreading
• UI commands for multithreading

Speaker: John Apostolakis (CERN)

17:00 → 17:10 Mini-break

17:10 → 17:55 Hadronic Physics - I

Introduction (what is it, why we need it, what are the challenges)
Overview of the hadronic physics framework
Hadronic cross-sections
Hadronic final-state models
Hadronic data libraries

Speaker: Alberto Ribon (CERN)

Tuesday 15 October

14:00 → 14:15 Homework / questions from Day 1

Questions from exercises / topics of Day 1

14:15 → 15:00 Visualization - Part 1

• Introduction to Visualization
• Quick Looks at Visualization Drivers
• Basic Visualization Commands

Speaker: John Allison

15:00 → 15:35 Geometry - Part 2

• Geometry checking tools
• GDML interface
• Geometry optimization
• Parallel geometries
• Moving geometries
• CAD interface
• Geometrical regions

Speaker: John Apostolakis (CERN)

15:35 → 16:05 Break

16:05 → 16:55 Multithreading

• Why use multi-threading in Geant4
• What data is shared between threads
• User commands to control threading and regular and error output
• User code / actions in multi-threaded (MT) mode

Speaker: John Apostolakis (CERN)

16:55 → 17:35 Electromagnetic physics

• Energy loss
• Cuts per region
• Models per region
• Atomic de-excitation
• Multiple and single scattering
• Documentation for electromagnetic physics

Speaker: Vladimir Ivantchenko (CERN)

17:35 → 18:00 Discussion

Geometry, Visualisation, Fields

Speakers: John Allison, John Apostolakis (CERN)

Wednesday 16 October

14:00 → 14:20 Homework / questions from Day 2

14:20 → 15:00 Scoring

• Introduction to Scoring
• Command-based scoring
• Sensitive detector vs. primitive scorer
• Basic structure of detector sensitivity
• Sensitive detectors and hits

Speaker: Makoto Asai (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US))

15:00 → 15:30 Additional User classes

• User limits
• User information classes
• Stack management

Speaker: Makoto Asai (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US))

15:30 → 16:00 Break

16:00 → 16:40 Fast Simulation

• Fast parameterised simulation
• G4VFastSimulationModel
• G4FastSimulationManagerProcess
• Use of "Ghost" volumes
• Techniques of fast simulation

Speakers: Alberto Ribon (CERN), Anna Zaborowska (CERN)

16:40 → 17:05 Discussion on UI, user actions and scoring

• UI commands
• User actions
• Scoring

Speaker: Makoto Asai (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US))

17:05 → 17:15 Mini-break

17:15 → 18:00 Visualisation - Part 2

Speaker: John Allison

Thursday 17 October

14:00 → 14:20 Homework / questions from Day 3

14:20 → 15:05 Electromagnetic physics II - Optical Photons

Optical photons - generation, propagation and their physics processes

Speaker: Alexander Howard (Imperial College (GB))

15:05 → 15:25 Definition of UI commands

• G4UIExecutive
• Definition of custom UI commands

Speaker: Makoto Asai (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US))

15:25 → 15:50 Break

15:50 → 16:05 Discussion

Your (further questions) about
- EM Physics II (photons)
- User Action classes

16:05 → 16:50 Magnetic Field

• Magnetic field
• Field integration and other types of field
• Steppers & Interpolation

Speaker: John Apostolakis (CERN)

16:50 → 17:00 Mini-break

17:00 → 17:45 Physics Lists

• Introduction to Physics Lists
• The Geant4 Physics List interface
• Using pre-packaged physics lists
• How to choose a physics list
• Examples

Speaker: Gunter Folger

17:45 → 18:00 Discussion

Your questions about today's topics - or earlier ones.

Friday 18 October

14:00 → 14:20 Homework / questions from Day 4

14:20 → 15:20 Event Biasing

• Introduction
• Early Provided Biasing Options
• Primary Particle Biasing
• Options In Hadronic
• Geometry-based importance biasing
• Weight Window Technique
• User defined biasing
• Reverse Monte-Carlo
• Generic Biasing Scheme

Speaker: Marc Verderi (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR))

15:20 → 15:40 Break

15:40 → 16:20 Physics Biasing

Physics biasing techniques

Speaker: Alberto Ribon (CERN)

16:20 → 17:15 Hadronics physics II

• Pre-compound and de-excitation models
• Intra-nuclear cascade models (Bertini, Binary, Liege (INCL))
• String models (Fritiof, Quark Gluon String)
• Capture/stopping models
• Fission models
• Elastic process
• Neutron physics
• Ion physics

Speaker: Alberto Ribon (CERN)

17:15 → 17:45 Questions & Answers

General discussion
Answers on topics raised on Mattermost

17:45 → 17:55 Adjourn