Introductory course

PTB, Braunschweig, 22-26 June 2009

This introductory course on the Geant4 Simulation Toolkit is hosted by Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) at Braunschweig.

Computing infrastructure needed for the course and Instructions how to access the PC hosting the course


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 (optionally) the Linux operating system is provided.
The hands-on session deals with installing Geant4 and satellite software systems, and guides the students to execute simple examples included in the Geant4 toolkit.

Welcome

Introduction

Geant4 refresher seminar

Introduction to Object Oriented Programming

Geant4 user application

Geant4 installation

Novice examples

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

Detector modelling  2

Primary event generation

Introduction to the hands-on session

Exercise: modelling an experimental configuration

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

Physics 2

Introduction to the hands-on session 

Exercise: selecting physics in the simulation

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

Interacting with Geant4 kernel

Introduction to the hands-on session

Installation of analysis tools

Exercise: retrieving and analyzing results from the simulation

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

How to learn more

Discussion session

Conclusion

Exercises

Geant4 application code used as a basis for the hands-on exercises can be downloaded in compressed format for Linux and Windows platforms respectively
Code for analysis exercises
Definition of basic environment variables for the exercises


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


The course is based on training material by the Geant4 Collaboration, complemented by original material by the instructors (V. Grichine, M.G. Pia, M. Sudhakar); in particular, thanks to K. Amako, M. Asai, G. Cosmo, A. Heikkinen, A. Howard, A. Lechner, M. Maire, Y. Morita, L. Pandola, A. Pfeiffer, T. Sasaki, S. Tanaka, M. Verderi, D. Wright, H. Yoshida.


Last update 17 giugno 2009 - Maria Grazia Pia