Physics Reference Manual

Scope of this Manual

The Physics Reference Manual provides detailed explanations of the physics implemented in the Geant4 toolkit.

The manual’s purpose is threefold:

  • to present the theoretical formulation, model, or parameterization of the physics interactions included in Geant4,

  • to describe the probability of the occurrence of an interaction and the sampling mechanisms required to simulate it, and

  • to serve as a reference for toolkit users and developers who wish to consult the underlying physics of an interaction.

This manual does not discuss code implementation or how to use the implemented physics interactions in a simulation. These topics are discussed in the User’s Guide for Application Developers. Details of the object-oriented design and functionality of the Geant4 toolkit are given in the User’s Guide for Toolkit Developers. The Installation Guide for Setting up |Geant4| in Your Computing Environment describes how to get the Geant4 code, install it, and run it.

Contents

Status of this Document

A description of the available physics models and processes within the Geant4 toolkit.

  • Rev 1.0: First sphinx version implemented for Geant4 Release 10.4, 8th Dec 2017

  • Rev 2.0: Updates and fixes in documentation for Geant4 Release 10.4, 15th May 2018

  • Rev 3.0: Geant4 Release 10.5, 11th December 2018

  • Rev 3.1: Geant4 Updates and fixes - especially to search functionality, 5th March 2019

  • Rev 4.0: Geant4 Release 10.6, 6th December 2019

  • Rev 5.0: Geant4 Release 10.7, 4th December 2020

  • Rev 6.0: Geant4 Release 11.0, 10th December 2021

  • Rev 7.0: Geant4 Release 11.1, 9th December 2022

  • Rev 7.1: Geant4 Fixes to http links, 15th July 2023

  • Rev 8.0: Geant4 Release 11.2, 8th December 2023