Introductory course

ORNL, 19-23 May 2008

This Short Course on the Geant4 Simulation Toolkit is hosted by RSICC at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory


Lecture notes: Unit 1 Unit 2 Unit 3 Unit 4 Unit 5 Code for the exercises

Unit 1 - 19 May - The basics

This unit provides an overview of Geant4 capabilities and basic concepts of a Geant4-based simulation application.
To facilitate students not familiar with the computing technologies applied in the course, a refresher introduction to object oriented programming and the Linux operating system is provided.
The hands-on session deals with installing Geant4 and satellite products and guides the students to execute simple examples included in the Geant4 toolkit.

Welcome - B. Kirk

Introduction - Hosts, instructors and students

Geant4 refresher seminar - M.G. Pia

Tea break

Introduction to Object Oriented Programming - M.G. Pia

Geant4 user application - M.G. Pia

Lunch

Introduction to Linux - A. Lechner

Tea break during Geant4 compilation

Geant4 installation - A. Lechner

Novice examples - L. Pandola

Unit 2 - 20 May - How to describe an experimental set-up

This unit teaches how to describe an experimental configuration in a Geant4-based user application.
The lectures present the Geant4 domains of materials and geometry, and illustrate how to generate primary particles as an input to the simulation.
The hands-on session guides the students through the creation of a simple experimental set-up in a user application.

Detector modelling  1

Tea break

Detector modelling  2

Primary event generation

Lunch

Introduction to the hands-on session (M.G. Pia)

Exercise: modelling an experimental configuration  (A. Lechner, L. Pandola)

Tea break during the exercises

Unit 3 - 21 May - Physics in Geant4

This unit provides a thorough overview of the physics processes and models available in Geant4 to simulate particle interactions with matter.
The hands-on session shows how to select the processes and models to be active in a user application; simple examples of physics configuration for various use cases are exercised, pertinent to different particle types and energy ranges.

Physics 1

Tea break

Physics 2

Lunch

Introduction to the hands-on session  (M.G. Pia)

Exercise: selecting physics in the simulation (A. Lechner, L. Pandola)

Tea break during the exercises

Unit 4 - 22 May - How to retrieve information from the simulation

This unit teaches how a user application can interact with Geant4 kernel to retrieve information of interest to the user; it illustrates how to visualize and analyze the outcome of the simulation..
The lectures present the Geant4 concepts of hits and digitisation, the interactive capabilities of visualisation and user interface, and how to utilize analysis tools in a simulation. An in-depth overview of Geant4 User Actions with examples how to exploit them is provided.
The hands-on session focuses on retrieving and using information from the simulation in a user application.

Interactive capabilities

Encoding simulation results  (A. Lechner)

Tea break

Interacting with Geant4 kernel (A. Lechner)

Lunch

Introduction to the hands-on session  (M.G. Pia)

Installation of analysis tools (A. Lechner)

Exercise: retrieving and analyzing results from the simulation  (A. Lechner, L. Pandola)

Tea break during the exercises

Unit 5 - 23 May - Beyond the basics

This unit illustrates some additional Geant4 capabilities beyond the basic tools illustrated in the previous lectures and shows how to run Geant4-based simulations in parallel mode.
The short afternoon session is devoted to discussion.

Overview of additional Geant4 capabilities

Review of Geant4 application in various domains (A. Lechner, L. Pandola, M.G. Pia)

Tea break

Geant4 in a distributed computing environment (A. Lechner)

How to learn more (M.G. Pia)

Lunch

Discussion session

Conclusion

Exercises

The Geant4 application code used as a basis for the hands-on exercises can be downloaded in compressed format for Linux and Windows platforms respectively.


Geant4 User Documentation can be browsed from the web or downloaded for printing.


Training team

The training team covers various areas of expertise in Geant4 development and applications:

Anton Lechner, Tech. Univ. Vienna, Austria and CERN, Switzerland
Luciano Pandola, INFN LNGS (Gran Sasso National Laboratory), Italy
Maria Grazia Pia, INFN Sezione di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146 Genova, Italy - Phone: +39 010 353 6328, Fax: +39 010 313358

The course is based on training material by the Geant4 Collaboration, complemented by original material by the instructors listed above; in particular, thanks to K. Amako (KEK), M. Asai (SLAC), G. Cosmo (CERN), A. Heikkinen (Helsinki Institute of Physics), A. Howard, M. Maire (LAPP), Y. Morita, A. Pfeiffer (CERN), T. Sasaki (KEK), S. Tanaka (Ritsumeikan Univ.), M. Verderi (IN2P3), D. Wright (SLAC), H. Yoshida (Naruto Univ.).


Last update 23 maggio 2008 - Maria Grazia Pia