Exercise #2 -- Particles and Interactions

Introduction

This tutorial has been updated for use at the October 2003 Fermilab Geant4 Tutorial, but is also designed for use by anyone else who wants to build and run Geant4 examples.

At this point it is assumed that the user has successfully completed Exercise #1 which set up the spectrometer geometry and introduced a charged geantino. Exercise # 2 builds on Exercise # 1 by introducing real particles and assigning physics processes to them in the User Physics List. The User Primary Generator will then be modified so that the user can run different particle types and observe the effects in the spectrometer.

Before starting the exercise you should download and unpack the TryOut2.tar.gz from here.


Shooting a Positron Through the Spectrometer

In this example the electromagnetic physics is defined in a Modular Physics List which includes gammas, electrons, positrons and electron neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. The following physics processes are registered to the gamma: to the electron: and to the positron:

Adding Muon Physics

The Modular Physics List for Muon Physics defines mu+, mu-, tau+, tau- and the associated neutrinos. The following physics processes are registered to the mu+ and mu-: and to the tau+ and tau- Note that although taus have been defined and assigned physics processes, if we try to run taus at this stage of the example we are likely to get a program abort. This is because the tau will most likely decay to hadrons which have not been defined yet.

Adding Hadron Physics

The Modular Physics List for Hadron Physics defines all the hadrons likely to be encountered in a simulation. These include: For a list of all the hadrons available see Section 5.3.2.1 of the User's Guide for Application Developers.

Physics processes are assigned to pi, K, p, n, lambda, sigma, xi, and omega, and their anti-particles. These include:

The hadron inelastic processes require at least one of the many hadronic models to be registered to them. For this example the Low Energy Parameterized (LEP) model (for energies below ~10 GeV), and the High Energy Parameterized (HEP) model (for energies above ~10 GeV), are registered.


Adding Ion Physics

The Modular Physics List for Ion Physics defines the light ions likely to be produced by the hadronic interactions. These include:

The physics processes assigned to these particles are:

For light ions only the Low Energy Parameterized (LEP) model is registered to the hadron inelastic processes.

Pre-packaged Physics Lists

A number of pre-packaged physics lists are available for specific use cases. These are built around the various hadronic models that are appropriate for the use cases. These lists can be downloaded, compiled and run as is. See the download and instructions page to get started.
Tutorial by: Dennis Wright
11 October 2003