Short Course

Austrian Academy of Sciences, Wien, 18-20 May 2006

This Short Course on the Geant4 Simulation Toolkit is held by the Geant4 Collaboration and is hosted by the Institut für Hochenergiephysik of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The course is open to up to 20 participants; priority is given to members of the hosting institute and other Austrian institutes. The registration is handled by the hosting institute; students interested to attend the course are kindly invited to contact Prof. Meinhard Regler.

 Abstract   Programme   Course material   Training team 

Geant4: Simulation of Particle Interactions with Matter

Abstract

Geant4 is a software toolkit for the simulation of the interaction of particles with matter, developed and maintained by a world-wide collaboration of physicists and computer scientists. Its application areas include high energy physics experiments, astrophysics and astroparticle physics, space science, medical physics and medical imaging, nuclear physics, radioprotection and radiation background studies. It exploits advanced software engineering techniques and Object Oriented technology to achieve transparency of the physics implementation, as well as openness to extension and evolution.

Geant4 provides a wide set of tools for all the domains of detector simulation, such as Geometry modeling, Detector Response, Run and Event management, Tracking, Visualisation and User Interface. An abundant set of Physics Processes handle the diverse interactions of particles with matter across a wide energy range, as required by Geant4 multi-disciplinary nature; for many physics processes a choice of different models is available. 

The Geant4 source code and libraries are freely available, accompanied by an extensive set of user documentation. 

The course provides an overview of Geant4 capabilities, and illustrates in detail the major features available in the toolkit to simulate an experimental set-up. Specific lectures are devoted to Geant4 capabilities for medical applications. Finally, the students are guided through a real-life simulation example, offering a practical implementation of the basic concepts of a user application. As a result of the course the students would learn how to develop simulation applications based on the Geant4 Toolkit. 

To best profit of the course, some basic knowledge of the C++ computing language  is recommended.


Programme

Part 1 - 18 May - Afternoon

Presentation of the course - M.G. Pia

Introduction - M.G. Pia

Basic structure of the Geant4 Simulation Toolkit - M.G. Pia

Detector modeling  -  A. Howard

Part 2 - 19 May - Morning

Primary event generation and interactions of particles with matter - M.G. Pia and A. Howard

Interactive capabilities - S. Guatelli

Overview of other Geant4 capabilities - A. Howard and S. Guatelli

Part 3 - 19 May - Afternoon

Overview of Geant4 application in diverse domains - M. G. Pia

How to use Geant4 - M.G. Pia

A simple application example: dosimetry with Geant4 - S. Guatelli

More on dosimetry with Geant4: an application example for the Bragg peak of protons - S. Guatelli

Part 4 - 20 May - Morning

Guided tours of example applications and demo executions - A. Howard and S. Guatelli

Installation - A. Howard

How to learn more - M. G. Pia

Part 5 - 22 May

Geant4 in a distributed computing environment - M.G. Pia

A practical example - S. Guatelli, A. Howard


Course material

Lecture notes are available for download from the web.
PLEASE NOTE that no paper copies will be distributed during the course.

Geant4 User Documentation (5 manuals) can be browsed from the web or downloaded for printing.


Training team

The training team is composed of Geant4 Collaboration members, covering various areas of expertise in the Toolkit development and its applications.

The course is based on training material by the Geant4 Collaboration; in particular, thanks to K. Amako (KEK), M. Asai (SLAC), G. Cosmo (CERN), A. Heikkinen (Helsinki Institute of Physics), M. Verderi (IN2P3), D. Wright (SLAC).

Susanna Guatelli is a post-doctoral fellow at INFN Section of Genova and a member of the Geant4 Collaboration; she is active in the domain of Geant4 physics validation and in advanced medical physics and space science applications. She has extensive experience in teaching Geant4 applications in various courses.
INFN Sezione di Genova and Univ. of Genova,  Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146 Genova, Italy - Phone: +39 010 353 6420, Fax: +39 010 313358

Alex Howard is a CERN fellow and a member of the Geant4 Collaboration; his activity in Geant4 covers various domains in electromagnetic and hadronic physics, event biasing techniques and applications in astroparticle and LHC experiments.
CERN, PH Division, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland - Phone: +41 22 76 71873, Fax: +41 22 76 69360)

Maria Grazia Pia is a high energy physicist at INFN Genova and the Geant4 National Coordinator at INFN. She has been a member of the Geant4 Collaboration since its R&D phase, contributing to Geant4 physics design, development and validation. She leads various projects within Geant4, including Low Energy Electromagnetic Physics, Advanced Examples, Physics Book and R&D for applications in HEP, astrophysics and medical physics. She launched the Geant4 Training Programme and is active in the domain of technology transfer. She is also involved in software projects for Data Analysis.
INFN Sezione di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146 Genova, Italy - Phone: +39 010 353 6328, Fax: +39 010 313358


Last update 17 May 2006 - Maria Grazia Pia