A Toolkit to Study Sensitivity of the Geant4 Predictions to the Variations of the Physics Model Parameters

Fields, Laura; Genser, Krzysztof; Hatcher, Robert; Kelsey, Michael; Perdue, Gabriel; Wenzel, Hans; Wright, Dennis H.; Yarba, Julia

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1085/4/042021

Title: A Toolkit to Study Sensitivity of the Geant4 Predictions to the Variations of the Physics Model Parameters

Journal Article · Thu Oct 18 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Journal of Physics. Conference Series

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1085/4/042021· OSTI ID:1413091

Fields, Laura ^[1]; Genser, Krzysztof ^[1]; Hatcher, Robert ^[1]; Kelsey, Michael ^[2]; Perdue, Gabriel ^[1]; Wenzel, Hans ^[1]; Wright, Dennis H. ^[2]; Yarba, Julia ^[1]

Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Geant4 is the leading detector simulation toolkit used in high energy physics to design detectors and to optimize calibration and reconstruction software. It employs a set of carefully validated physics models to simulate interactions of particles with matter across a wide range of interaction energies. These models, especially the hadronic ones, rely largely on directly measured cross-sections and phenomenological predictions with physically motivated parameters estimated by theoretical calculation or measurement. Because these models are tuned to cover a very wide range of possible simulation tasks, they may not always be optimized for a given process or a given material. This raises several critical questions, e.g. how sensitive Geant4 predictions are to the variations of the model parameters, or what uncertainties are associated with a particular tune of a Geant4 physics model, or a group of models, or how to consistently derive guidance for Geant4 model development and improvement from a wide range of available experimental data. We have designed and implemented a comprehensive, modular, user-friendly software toolkit to study and address such questions. It allows one to easily modify parameters of one or several Geant4 physics models involved in the simulation, and to perform collective analysis of multiple variants of the resulting physics observables of interest and comparison against a variety of corresponding experimental data. Based on modern event-processing infrastructure software, the toolkit offers a variety of attractive features, e.g. flexible run-time configurable workflow, comprehensive bookkeeping, easy to expand collection of analytical components. Design, implementation technology, and key functionalities of the toolkit are presented and illustrated with results obtained with Geant4 key hadronic models.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-07CH11359

OSTI ID:: 1413091

Report Number(s):: FERMILAB-CONF-17-325-CD; 1642356

Journal Information:: Journal of Physics. Conference Series, Vol. 1085, Issue 4; ISSN 1742-6588

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (5)

Recent developments in Geant4 Allison, J.; Amako, K.; Apostolakis, J. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 835 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2016.06.125	journal	November 2016
The Geant4 Bertini Cascade Wright, D. H.; Kelsey, M. H. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 804 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2015.09.058	journal	December 2015
Geometry Description Markup Language for Physics Simulation and Analysis Applications Chytracek, R.; Mccormick, J.; Pokorski, W. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 53, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2006.881062	journal	October 2006
Large-angle production of charged pions with 3–12.9 GeV/ $c$ incident protons on nuclear targets Catanesi, M. G.; Radicioni, E.; Edgecock, R. Physical Review C, Vol. 77, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.77.055207	journal	May 2008
Forward production of charged pions with incident protons on nuclear targets at the CERN Proton Synchrotron Apollonio, M.; Artamonov, A.; Bagulya, A. Physical Review C, Vol. 80, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.80.035208	journal	September 2009