Geant4: A Beginner’s Guide

Written By A Beginner
Cesar Gonzalez Renteria
“I taught myself how to play guitar, which was a bad decision because I
didn't know how to play it, so I was a shitty teacher.” – Mitch Hedberg

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 The Gist
• Toolkit created by CERN to
simulate the passage of particles
through matter.
• Designed to make the physics
used transparent within the
toolkit, handle a wide range of
geometries, and enable an easy
adaptation of different physics
to fit the application.

[1]
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 Overall Structure
• The Top Level Category Diagram
of the Geant4 toolkit.
• Geant4 is built to have no
circular dependence.
• Categories at the bottom are
used by virtually all higher
categories.

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 Basic Steps to Run a Sim
• Define a Geometrical Setup
• Material, Volume, etc.
• Define the physics involved
• Particles, Physics Processes/Models
• Production Thresholds
• Define the initial conditions of the events
• Primary Track Generation
• Chose how the parameters are calculated
• Event and Track Management
• Choose what information to save and what files to produce
• If more advanced, can also:
• Visualize Geometry, Graphical User Interface, Define own UI commands, etc.

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 Geometry and Representation
• Now with CAD interchangeability.
• Split into Logical and Physical Volume.
• Logical:
• Represents a detector element
• Can hold other elements inside its
volume.
• Can define material and sensitive
detector behavior.
• Physical:
• Represents the spatial positioning of the
logical volume with respect to and
enclosing “mother” volume.

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 Geometry and Representation (cont.)
• Introduction of Solids using the
concept of Constructive Solid
Geometry (CGS).
• More complex solids are defined by
their bounded surfaces and belong
to Boundary Representations
(BREPs).
• Geant4 provides multiple packages
(DAWNFILE, DAVID) that can be
used for geometry verification.
• Checks that volumes do not overlap with
one another.
• Checks that the “daughter” volumes are
fully contained within the “mother”
volume.
[2]

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 Particle Interaction in Matter
• Drives tracking activities through three possible tracking outcomes:
• At Rest – Particle….at rest.
• Along Step – Implements Energy Loss or Secondary Particle Production happening
continuously through particles trajectory.
• Post Step – Invoked at the end of a step (e.g. secondary particle production via a decay or
interaction).
• Geant4 uses predefined packages and public evaluated databases for the physical
processes used in the simulation. (Can be changed by user).
• Ex: G4(e/h)Ionisation, G4eBremsstrahlung, etc.
• A physics process may aggregate various components, each one being
represented by a model; models can play complementary or alternative roles.
• Materials category reflects nature: made of single or mixture of elements,
elements made of single of mixture of isotopes, etc.

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 Tracking Management
• Particles are moved in steps by
physics processes or by detector
geometry.
• After a step a track’s state
records whether it is on a
boundary, whether it is exiting
the current volume, etc.
• Event Handling has three stacks:
“urgent”, “waiting” and
“postpone to next event”.
[2]

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 Event Management
• Provides an abstract interface to
external physics event
generators for the generation of
the primary particles which
define a physics event.
• G4Event class:
• Contains PV and PP.
• Stores hits and digitization
• Stores trajectories for “simulation
truth” [2]

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 Digitization and Hit Management
• Hit – a snapshot of a physical
interaction
• Digit – Actual Detector output
(e.g. ADC/TDC count, etc.)
• Logical Volume can point to a
“sensitive detector”
• Sensitive Detector creates hits
based on the user’s
implementation of the detector
response. [3]

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 User Interface
[2]

• Intercoms – provides command

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Visualization and Visualization Framework
[2]
• To visualize the detector geometry,
particle trajectories, tracking steps,
etc.
• Graphics System – An application
running independently alongside
GEANT4 or a graphics library to be
compiled with GEANT4.
• Visualization Driver – Concrete
implementation of an interface.
Can use a graphics library,
communicate with an independent
process, or write an intermediate
file for a separate viewer.

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 Applications
• Hadronic Physics: String Models, • Space Applications: Planetary
Intranuclear Cascade Models, Scale Simulation of Soil Level,
precompound, Fermi-Breakup, Spaceship Sim for
Fission/Evaporation, Radioactive Radioprotection, etc.
Decays • Medical: Brachytherapy Devices,
• HEP: BaBar, CMS, LHC. First use Radioprotection, Nuclear
of Geant 4 for an actual Physics Imaging, etc.
Experiment. • DNA Scale Sims: Applied to
Silicon for Single Upset Events

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 [5]

[4]

[6]

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 References
• [1] - http://geant4.web.cern.ch/geant4/gallery/fullsize/LISAEvent.jpg
• [2] – S. Angostinelli et al., “Geant4 – a simulation toolkit”, Nuclear
Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 506 (2003) 250–303
• [3] – http://hypernews.slac.stanford.edu/HyperNews/geant4/get/AUX/2015/03/24/04.42-
57847-02_03_15.png
• [4] – http://www2.kek.jp/proffice/archives/feature/2010/images/Geant4_4.jpg
• [5] – R.M. Bianchi, “Event display of a 2-tau candidate in the ATLAS detector”,
http://cds.cern.ch/record/1631395
• [6] – S. Jan et al., “Geant4 Application for Emission Tomography: a simulation toolkit for
PET and SPECT”, http://wiki.opengatecollaboration.org/images/d/d7/GoldGate.jpg

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