2020 Planned Features

Items in this list are related to developments scheduled for the current year.
Improvements, fixes, studies and maintenance items, as well as software management, infrastructure and testing tasks are not mentioned here, as part of routine activity

NOTE: Items marked with (*) may or may not be achieved in 2020.

 

Electromagnetic physics & optical processes

  • Infrastructure:
    • Speed-up of the Urban multiple-scattering model keeping physics performance - (1)
    • Reduce CPU at initialisation in MT mode - (1)
    • Review for speedup of classes related to transport - (1)
    • Implementation of an alternative, specialised transport for e+- and gamma for HEP applications - (1)/(2)
    • Consolidation of the "general gamma process" approach and extend it for positrons - (1)/(2)
    • Study effect of high-energy muon scattering due to high-energy radiative processes - (1)/(2)
  • Adjoint models:
    • General code review of adjoint processes - (1)
  • Atomic de-excitation:
    • Further development of ANSTO PIXE data library and evaluation of Auger emission yields - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of a data base for ionisation cross-sections of K-, L-, and M- shells by heavy ion collisions - (2)
  • DNA physics & chemistry
    • Implementation of IRT chemistry transport - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of CPA100 models for DNA related materials - (2)
    • Increase of upper limit for DNA proton physics from 100 to 300 MeV - (2)
    • Increase upper limit for DNA e- physics Option4 from 10 keV up to 1 MeV - (2)
  • Gamma models:
    • Introduction of quantum entanglement for the gamma transport - (1)
    • Introduction of EPICS 2017 cross-sections to all gamma models as an alternative option - (1)/(2)
    • Review and update of all Livermore gamma models - (1)/(2)
    • Introduction of linear gamma polarization options into all gamma models - (2)
    • Complete the recalculation of atomic electron momentum PDFs and Compton profiles for all elements - (2)
  • Ionisation processes:
    • Evaluation of ion ionisation models for moderate and high energies - (1)
    • Review of model for sampling fluctuations of e+- as alternative model - (1)/(2)
    • Evaluation on usage of ICRU90 stopping power data as default - (1)/(2)
    • Development of ionisation model for gold based on dielectric theory - (1)/(2)
    • Evaluation of new ion energy fluctuation model - (2)
    • Implementation of Taborda approximation to electron stopping below 30 keV - (2)
  • Medical physics applications and radiology:
    • Simulation studies on RBE, LET, G-values, and DNA damage - (1)/(2)
  • Multiple and single scattering:
    • Further tuning and optimisation of Goudsmit-Saunderson model for HEP applications - (1)
    • New single scattering model for e+- based on ELSEPA (numerical Dirac-Fock PWA) - (2)
    • Improvements to back-scattering algorithm for the Urban model - (2)
    • Evaluation of Wenzel-VI model performance with 2nd order corrections enabled - (2)/(*)
  • Optical photon processes and X-ray physics:
    • Extension of modelling of scintillation and WLS - (1)
  • Positron annihilation
    • Addition of more accurate two-gamma annihilation using atomic electron momentum PDFs - (1)/(2)
    • Evaluation of model for three gamma annihilation - (1)/(2)
    • Addition of tau pair production by positrons - (2)
    • Extension of energy limit for positron annihilation to hadrons - (2)/(*)
  • Validation & Testing:
    • Introduction of detailed test of stepping for EM calorimeters triggered by ATLAS - (1)
    • Addition of CMS HGCAL test-beam into testing suite - (1)
    • Support and validation of transition radiation model for ATLAS and ALICE - (1)
    • Extend geant-val suite with full set of tests from the EM testing suite - (1)/(2)
    • Evaluation of medical physics benchmarks - (1)/(2)
    • Testing of Synchrotron radiation in complex magnets - (1)/(2)

 

Geometry

  • Interface with navigator based on VecGeom - (1)
  • Separate safety computation and state from navigator - (1)/(2)
  • Review accuracy of boundary crossing in field - (1)/(2)
  • Enable VecGeom shapes as default - (1)/(2)
  • Code review and optimisation - (1)/(2)
  • Equation of motion and steppers templated on type of field - (2)​
  • Revision of the transportation processes; specialised transportation processes for neutral and charged particles - (2)

​

Hadronic Physics

  • Cross-sections
    • Improvement of elementary (hadron-nucleon) cross sections - (1)/(2)
    • Verify and extend G4PARTICLEXS dataset (new data for fusion, light targets, elastic scattering for proton and light ions, gamma) - (1)/(2)
    • Interface for changing easily cross-sections on top of any physics list (allow user-defined cross-section per element or per material) - (1)/(2)
  • Elastic and Quasi-elastic Models
    • Extend hadron elastic for heavy hadrons (i.e. charmed and bottom mesons and baryons) and use it in physics lists - (1)/(2)
    • Improvement and validation of diffuse elastic model - (1)/(2)
    • Interface for changing easily elastic models on top of any physics list - (1)/(2)
    • Extension of elastic scattering validation for antiproton and light anti-ions - (1)/(2)
  • High Precision (HP) Models
    • Validation and update of ParticleHP model - (1)/(2)
    • Implement option to force ParticleHP to respect event-by-event conservations (energy-momentum, baryonic number, etc.) - (1)/(2)
    • Extend ParticleHP model to higher energies - (1)/(2)
    • Introduction of NuDEX, to generate EM de-excitation cascades - (1)/(2)
    • Create a tool to automatically change charged particle cross-sections adding user experimental data - (1)/(2)
  • Intra-nuclear Cascade models
    • Collisions with light targets in Bertini Cascade - (1)/(2)
    • Code review and improvements to Binary Cascade - (1)/(2)
    • Development of coalescence in Binary (BIC) model - (1)/(2)
    • Upgrade and maintenance of Liege (INCL++) model - (1)/(2)
    • Maintenance of ABLA++ model and improvements in the production of hyper-nuclei - (1)/(2)
  • Low Energy Neutron Data Model
    • New validated version of LEND model with new GIDI interface - (1)/(2)
    • Validation and improvement of gamma-nuclear models - (1)/(2)
  • NCrystal Model
    • Addition of new inelastic scattering models - (1)/(2)
  • Precompound/de-excitation Models
    • Finalization, validation and release of new GEM (Generalized Evaporation Model) model - (1)/(2)
    • Tuning of evaporation probabilities (alpha production in light fragment decay) - (1)/(2)
  • Radioactive Decay Model
    • Implementation of possibility to add user custom beta spectrum - (1)/(2)
    • Inclusion of beta-delayed particle emissions - (1)/(2)
    • Extensions to allow for the simulation of Super Heavy Elements (SHE) - (1)/(2)
  • String Models
    • Treatment of decays of heavy hadrons - (1)/(2)
    • Tuning and validation of charm production for FTF and QGS - (1)/(2)
    • Extension, improvement, tuning and validation of anti-baryon annihilations in the FTF model - (1)/(2)
    • Improvement of elastic scattering for anti-baryons and light anti-nuclei - (1)/(2)
    • Review of the nuclear residual excitation energy in hadronic models - (1)/(2)
    • Validation, improvements and extension of coalescence model to hadron-nucleus interactions - (1)/(2)
    • Hadronic shower improvements of FTF and QGS models - (1)/(2)
    • Simulation of high-energy jets (1 to 20 TeV) with EPOS/Geant4 - (1)/(2)
  • Hadronic Framework
    • Implement proper deletion of all hadronic models and data at the end of a job - (1)/(2)
    • Revision of verbosity in hadronics via UI commands - (1)/(2)
  • Validation
    • Hadronic validation with BNL and MIPS data, and with the new high-granularity CMS test-beam - (1)/(2)
    • Study sensitivity of MC predictions to parameters variations, with focus on FTF, BERT, Pre-compound models - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of interfaces of hadronic models to be used by GENIE neutrino interaction code - (1)/(2)
    • Integration of the n_TOF target test - (1)/(2)
    • Refinements to TARC validation - (1)/(2)
    • Addition of experiments test-beam simulations to hadronic physics validation - (1)/(2)
  • Development and validation of neutrino/lepton – nuclear physics - (1)/(2)
  • Maintenance and investigation of possible extension of QMD model - (1)/(2)
  • Muonic atom physics - (1)/(2)
  • Explore possibility of using Deep Learning to emulate a low-energy nuclear interaction model (BLOB) and its porting on GPU - (1)/(2)

 

Materials, Generic Processes and Parameterisations

  • Geometry Biasing & Importance
    • Comparison between generic and importance biasing - (1)/(2)
    • Investigation on rare crashes in geometry-based importance biasing - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of an extension for multiple particle type biasing - (1)/(2)
  • Differential cross-sections
    • Implementation of new elastic differential cross-section class to be used in DXTRAN biasing option - (1)/(2)
    • Adoption of the new elastic differential cross-section class in hadron elastic - (1)/(2)
  • Generic Biasing
    • Enrich event biasing options: DXTRAN-like biasing, implicit capture, occurrence biasing of charged particles with cross-section changing over the step - (1)/(2)
    • Extend generic biasing scheme for at rest case - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of a statistical test suite to verify correctness of biased wrt analog simulation - (1)/(2)
    • Prototype: occurrence biasing (continuous density change inside a same volume); material/isotope biasing; Woodcock tracking - (1)/(2)
    • Investigation on effects in propagating tiny weights for large cross-section change (neutrino interactions) - (1)/(2)
  • Materials
    • Addition of new materials to the list of UV transparent for very low-energy photoelectric-effect - (1)/(2)
    • Addition/update of interfaces allowing use of NIST parameters for custom element/materials - (1)/(2)
  • Fast Simulation
    • Finalise revision of GFlash model - (1)/(2)
    • Modernisation of EM shower parametrisation, including automated tuning procedures - (1)/(2)
    • Investigation on possibility of facilitators for machine learning inference - (1)/(2)
  • ​Radiotherapy & radioprotection
    • Completion of ambient dose equivalent H*(10) topics - (1)/(2)

 

Particles & Track

  • Performance improvements and code readability - (1)/(2)

 

Persistency & Analysis

  • Regular maintenance & extensions to GDML - (1)/(2)
  • Attempt to integrate g4tools/plotting in the G4/vis and UI system - (1)/(2)
  • Addition of flexibility in resetting/deleting histograms - (1)/(2)
  • Review support for writing the same histogram/profile in a file several times (object versions) - (1)/(2)
  • Handling of more files by analysis manager - (1)/(2)
  • Separation of the n-tuple management from the histogram and profiles management - (1)/(2)

 

Physics Lists

  • Deletion of builders and physics processes in multi-threaded mode - (1)
  • Modernisation of hadronic builders in physics lists - (1)/(2)
  • Review of physics lists code - (1)/(2)
  • Inclusion of heavy hadron nuclear interactions in physics lists - (1)/(2)
  • Monitoring and documentation of physics lists with the focus on Intensity Frontier (IF) experiments - (1)/(2)
  • Physics lists validation using Beam simulation - (1)/(2)
  • Support for changing of model parameters in validation tools - (1)/(2)
  • Further developments/updates to geant-val portal - (1)/(2)
  • Recommendation/documentation of physics lists for specific use cases - (1)/(2)
  • Complete automated physics list documentation and integrate in web documentation - (1)/(2)
  • Produce graphs showing overlap of physics models - (1)/(2)
  • Create setup to run regression testing at process level - (1)/(2)

​

Run, Event, Detector Response & Scoring

  • Multi-threading:
    • Finalise tasking-based mechanism (allow threads to join/leave workers pool) - (2)
    • Prototype for sub-event level parallelism - (2)
  • Enhancements to command-based scorer and creation a new example to demonstrate its new features - (1)/(2)
  • Revision of production thresholds - (2)
  • Implementation of a phase-space file interface to GPS - (2)/(*)

 

Tracking

  • Code cleanup and performance improvements - (1)/(2)
  • Redesign and implementation of G4ForceConditions - (2)

 

User and Category Interfaces

  • Revision of the UI command broadcasting mechanism from master to worker threads along with the task-based parallelism - (1)/(2)
  • Migration to Python3 as default Python interface (drop of Python2) - (1)/(2)
  • Integration of G4Py module to Geant4 CMake build - (1)/(2)

 

Visualisation and Graphics Representations

  • OpenGL drivers:
    • OGLFile to produce image files in batch jobs where no graphics card is present - (1)
    • Study code signing/notarising issues for using OpenGL from Geant4-based applications on MacOS 10.15 Catalina - (1)
    • Improvements to toolbar in OpenGL Qt - (2)
    • Adapt to newer OpenGL versions, exploit new functionalities and replace deprecated calls such as glBegin/glEnd - (2)/(*)
      • Investigate a way to switch from OpenGL to other technology
      • Apple/Metal: being able to render without OpenGL on MacOS
  • Other drivers:
    • Remove code of obsolete Wt driver - (1)
    • OpenInventor: Continue development of G4OpenInventorQtExtendedViewer - (*)
    • iOS and Android Devices: Develop visualization solutions for these devices - (*)
    • Native Qt driver (Qt3D) - (*)
  • Implication of the Qt license changes (https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-offering-changes-2020) - (1)/(2)
  • Integrate g4tools/plotting in Geant4 UI system. - (*)
  • Implementation of a native Qt driver - (*)
  • Updates to gMocrenFile and gMocren to support visualization attributes and other information - (*)

 

Advanced Examples

  • Code review and coding guidelines - (1)/(2)
  • Development of alternative approaches for LET calculation in hadrontherapy - (1)/(2)
  • New example modelling dust cloud - (2)
  • Release of GORAD (Geant4 Open-source Radiation Analysis and Design) - (2)
  • New example for nanomedicine (gold nanoparticles in X-ray radiotherapy) - (2)/(*)
  • New example showing how to import in Geant4 simulations IAEA Phase Space Files - (2)/(*)
  • New CMS example - (2)/(*)
  • Improvement of GammaRayTel example to deal with polarised processes - (2)/(*)

​

Novice & Extended Examples

  • Improvements to existing DNA examples and addition of new chem6 (scoring radiochemical yield G) - (1)
  • New example illustrating generic biasing for "DXTRAN" MCNP-like option and implicit capture - (1)/(2)
  • Extended biasing examples: fix overlap among B02, B03 and GB03 examples - (1)/(2)
  • Update of selected examples with usage of G4Accumulable - (1)/(2)
  • Porting of Geant4e and related example to multi-threading - (1)/(2)
  • Extension to the DICOM reader to support RT Dose format - (1)/(2)
  • Complete migration to MixMax in EM examples - (1)/(2)
  • Inclusion of new cross-sections for gas materials in the "icsd" Geant4-DNA example - (1)/(2)
  • Review of examples macros and tests - (1)/(2)
  • Complete application of coding guidelines - (1)/(2)
  • Integration of the Opticks package in a new extended example - (2)

Deadlines

  1. First semester - 26 June 2020
  2. Second semester - 4 December 2020

First release: 5 March 2020
Last update: 5 March 2020