Speaker
Description
Typically, in accelerator simulations, the interaction of beam particles with material is either neglected or implemented only for specific physics processes. However, beam-material interactions can sometimes be beneficial—for example, in the cooling of muons, the creation of secondary or tertiary beams, or the energy degradation of therapeutic proton beams. In other cases, these interactions represent beam losses and associated backgrounds that need to be minimised. Another important application is beam instrumentation which relies on the beam interacting with material, for example, screens or wires.
This seminar surveys the field of simulating beam interactions with accelerator materials. It describes the radiation transport simulation tools typically used (e.g., Geant4 and FLUKA), coupled with beam tracking codes such as XSuite. Stewart Boogert has co-developed multiple open-source codes to achieve efficient and easy-to-use simulations of beam interactions with matter.
One example is Beam Delivery Simulation (BDSIM), a Geant4-based code that will be described in the seminar. BDSIM is unique as it is routinely used for a broad range of accelerators from a 250 MeV proton therapy machine all the way up in energy to HL-LHC and FCC-ee. Another recent example is PYthon FLUka Beam Line (PYFLUBL), a Python package for generating beamline models for FLUKA. The seminar will conclude with an outlook on the future of such coupled simulations and potential research and development directions.
