2019 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 2019.

 

Geometry

  • Enable default use of interpolation in intersection calculation in magnetic field propagation - (1)
  • Complete set of specific shapes in VecGeom - (1)/(2)
  • Implement prototype navigator based on VecGeom - (1)/(2)
  • Separate safety computation and state from navigator - (1)/(2)
  • Revise protocol between transportation and tracking to better cope with particles looping in field - (1)/(2)
  • Review accuracy of boundary crossing in field - (2)
  • Revision of the transportation processes; specialised transportation processes for neutral and charged particles - (2)
  • Profiling and optimisation of multiple navigation - (2)​

​

Hadronic Physics

  • Cross-sections
    • More accurate treatment of elastic and use of TOTEM data for pp - (1)/(2)
    • Extension of Glauber-Gribov nuclear cross-sections for heavy projectiles: hyperons, charmed & bottom hadrons - (1)/(2)
  • High Precision (HP) Models
    • Validation and update of ParticleHP model - (1)/(2)
    • Verification and validation of simulation of (alpha, n) reactions - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of SCINFUL-QMD physics for detailed simulation of neutron detectors up to few hundreds MeV - (1)/(2)
    • Improved Gamma cascades - (1)/(2)
  • Intra-nuclear Cascade models
    • Improved multi-body phase space generation in Bertini (BERT) and its validation against HARP data - (1)/(2)
    • Development of coalescence in Binary (BIC) model - (1)/(2)
    • Code review and improvements to Binary model - (1)/(2)
    • Upgrade and maintenance of INCL++ model - (1)/(2)
  • Precompound/de-excitation
    • Include gamma de-excitation chain into Fermi Break-Up - (1)/(2)
    • Finalization and release of new GEM (Generalized Evaporation Model) model - (1)/(2)
  • Elastic and Quasi-elastic Models
    • Introduction of new model with delta-resonance elastic scattering for pions - (1)/(2)
    • Improvement and validation of diffuse elastic model - (1)/(2)
  • Low Energy Neutron Data Model
    • New version of LEND/GIDI - (1)/(2)
    • Physics lists using LEND with LLNL fission model - (1)/(2)
  • Radioactive Decay
    • Add possibility to add 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)
    • Interface to LLNL spontaneous fission model - (1)/(2)
  • String Models
    • Analysis of small-angle particles production in proton and pion nuclear interactions in FTF and QGS - (1)/(2)
    • Revision of the statistical multi-fragmentation model and analysis of nuclear multi-fragmentation data - (1)/(2)
    • Extension of FTF and QGS string models to charmed and bottom hadrons - (1)/(2)
    • Review of string fragmentation treatment for low-mass strings and antiproton annihilation - (1)/(2)
    • Development, fine tuning and validation of FTF for antiproton-nucleus interactions from rest to 100 GeV - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of FTF model for nucleus-nucleus interactions - (1)/(2)
    • Collect experimental data on charm hadron production in hadron-nucleus interactions for future validation - (1)/(2)
    • Introduction of fusion of quark-gluon strings for FTF and QGS - (1)/(2)
    • Study of physics effects in using EPOS for hadron interactions at very high energy - (1)/(2)
    • Hadronic shower effects of FTF and QGS - (1)/(2)
    • Code improvements of string models (FTF and QGS) - (1)/(2)
    • Further improvements of HIJING ar RHIC and LHC energies - (1)/(2)
  • Validation
    • Hadronic validation with BNL and MIPs data, and with the new high-granularity CMS test-beam - (1)/(2)
    • Development of the infrastructure for studying sensitivity of MC predictions to the variations of the model parameters - (1)/(2)
    • Addition of experiments test-beam simulations to hadronic physics validation - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of cascade models with the n_TOF evaluated neutron flux - (1)/(2)
    • Validation and maintenance of TARC - (1)/(2)
  • Improved integration of NCrystal in Geant4 - (1)/(2)
  • Improvements to muonic atoms - (1)/(2)
  • Improvements to neutrino- (electron-, gamma-) nucleus final-state models - (1)/(2)
  • Maintenance and validation of QMD - (1)/(2)
  • Maintenance and hypernuclei production in ABLA++ - (1)/(2)
  • Interface with BLOB (low-energy, entry-channel) model - (1)/(2)
  • Investigation on possible simplifications of the hadronic framework - (1)/(2)

 

Low-energy Electromagnetic physics

  • Atomic de-excitation
    • Extension of shell ionisation cross-sections - (2)
  • DNA
    • New and/or alternative cross-section models - (2)
    • New examples - (2)
    • New and updated chemistry models - (*)
  • Livermore models
    • New model for polarized pair production in nuclear field - (2)/(*)
    • Improvement of pair production in the electron field - (2)/(*)
  • Monash U. models
    • Complete recalculation of atomic electron momentum PDFs and Compton profiles for elements Z=1 to Z=100 - (2)
  • Penelope models
    • Updated physics processes - (2)
  • Validation
    • G4MSBG validation - (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: leading particle biasing, DXTRAN-like biasing, implicit capture - (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: biasing of charged particles (with cross-section changing over the step); occurrence biasing (continuous density change inside a same volume); material/isotope biasing; Woodcock tracking - (1)/(2)
    • Investigation on potential difficulties in propagating tiny weights for large cross-section change (neutrino interactions) - (1)/(2)
  • Fast Simulation
    • Revision of GFlash model - (1)/(2)
  • ​Radiotherapy & radioprotection
    • Completion of ambient dose equivalent H*(10) topics - (1)/(2)

 

Particles & Track

  • Performance improvements and code readability - (1)/(2)
  • Review of production thresholds - (1)/(2)
  • Improvements and update of G4IonTable and G4ParticleTable to cope with muonic atom and hyperons - (1)/(2)

 

Persistency & Analysis

  • Implementation of import/export of assemblies envelopes in GDML - (1)
  • Improve n-tuple merging in row-wise mode - (1)/(2)
  • Addition of analysis "executive" to provide possibility to choose output type at run-time - (1)/(2)
  • Additional flexibility in resetting/deleting histograms - (1)/(2)
  • Review support for writing same histogram/profile on file several times - (1)/(2)
  • Handling of more files by analysis manager - (1)/(2)

 

Physics Lists

  • Fix physics-list/constructor registration on Windows static library builds - (1)/(2)
  • Elimination of template mechanism in physics lists - (1)/(2)
  • Removal of independent version number - (1)/(2)
  • Review of the data questionnaire - (1)/(2)
  • Deprecate and remove SetCuts from the interface - (1)/(2)
  • Deletion of builders and physics processes in multi-threaded mode - (2)/(*)
  • Create setup to run regression testing at process level - (2)/(*)

​

Run, Event, Detector Response & Scoring

  • Multi-threading:
    • Workspace and memory cleanup in MT - (1)/(2)
    • Finalize new design of threads though tasking mechanism (allow threads to join/leave workers pool) - (2)
    • Porting of material scanner to MT - (2)
    • Hooks for sub-event level parallelism - (2)
  • Implementation of a phase-space file interface to GPS - (2)
  • Revision of production thresholds - (2)

 

Standard Electromagnetic physics & optical processes

  • Infrastructure:
    • Extension of G4DynamicParticle with logarithm of energy to reduce number of calls to logarithm - (1)
    • Introduction of detailed test if stepping for EM calorimeters in ATLAS - (1)
    • Evaluation of "global process" approach for gamma and electrons - (1)/(2)
    • Introduction of gamma linear polarisation option to be applied to any EM physics configuration - (1)/(2)
    • Extension of dark matter particle interactions - (1)/(2)
    • Extension of validation of EM biasing options - (1)/(2)
    • Study on effect of high-energy muon scattering due to high-energy radiative processes - (1)/(2)
    • Addition of CMS HGCAL test-beam into testing suite - (2)/(*)
  • Bremsstrahlung and Gamma models:
    • Extension of gamma conversion relativistic model to cover the full energy range - (1)
    • Extension of gamma conversion to muon pair model to cover the full energy range - (1)
    • Refinement of the 5D gamma conversion model and extension of applicability range above 80 GeV - (1)/(2)
    • Introduction of bremsstrahlung on atomic electrons at high and moderate energies with triplet production - (2)
  • Ionisation processes:
    • Evaluation of new 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 - (1)/(2)
    • Evaluation of new ion energy fluctuation model - (2)
  • Multiple and single scattering:
    • Updates and tuning to Goudsmit-Saunderson model for HEP applications - (1)
    • Review implementation of Mott corrections to WVI and SS models - (1)
    • Study on displacement beyond boundary algorithm - (1)/(2)
    • New single scattering model for e+- based on ELSEPA (numerical Dirac-Fock PWA) - (2)
    • Evaluation of WentzelVI model performance with 2nd order corrections enabled - (2)/(*)
  • Positron annihilation
    • Deployment of new model of the three gamma annihilation - (1)
    • Extension of energy limit for positron annihilation to hadrons - (1)/(2)
    • Addition of tau pair production by positrons - (2)
  • Optical photon processes and X-ray physics:
    • Improvement of Synchrotron radiation in quadrupole field - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of the transition radiation model for ATLAS - (1)/(2)
    • Extension and cleanup of optical examples - (1)/(2)

 

Tracking

  • Code cleanup and performance improvements - (1)/(2)
  • Redesign unified way of tracking ions, muonic atoms, radicals and electrons/holes/phonons - (2)

 

User and Category Interfaces

  • Improvements to ZeroMQ interface / Jupyter frontend - (1)/(2)
  • Integration of G4Py module to CMake build - (1)/(2)

 

Visualisation and Graphics Representations

  • OpenGL drivers:
    • New driver OGLFile to produce image files in batch jobs where no graphics card is present - (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)/(*)
  • Other drivers:
    • New driver for export to format readable by Paraview - (1)/(2)
    • Rewrite of Wt driver - (2)
    • New Apple/Metal driver for MacOS - (2)
    • Native Qt driver - (*)
    • Updates to gMocrenFile and gMocren to support visualization attributes and other information - (*)
    • New driver G4DAE exporter for export in Collada format - (*)
    • Updates to OpenInventor EntendedViewer - (*)
    • Development of visualization solutions for iOS and Android devices - (*)
    • New PDF3D driver - (*)
    • Change from flat format to hierarchical format in VRML - (*)
  • Visualization of geometry overlaps - (1)
  • Full support for visualisation of Boolean shapes - (1)/(2)
  • New tool to support high resolution transparent visualization with ability to rotate and zoom - (*)
  • Support of user-drawn primitives in multi-threaded mode - (*)
  • Integrated visualization of field lines - (*)

 

Advanced Examples

  • Code review and coding guidelines - (1)/(2)
  • Development of alternative approaches for LET calculation in hadrontherapy - (1)/(2)
  • Assessment of physics of advanced examples and analysis of software quality metrics - (1)/(2)
  • Migration of air_shower example to multi-threading - (1)/(2)
  • New example for nanomedicine (gold nanoparticles in X-ray radiotherapy) - (2)/(*)

​

Novice & Extended Examples

  • Review of examples macros and tests - (1)/(2)
  • Complete application of coding guidelines - (1)/(2)
  • 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)
  • New example "dnadamage" for Geant4-DNA for simulation of a DNA chromatin segment with molecular definition - (1)/(2)
  • Inclusion of new cross-sections for gas materials in the "icsd" Geant4-DNA example - (1)/(2)
  • Updating 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)

Deadlines

  1. First semester - 28 June 2019
  2. Second semester - 6 December 2019

First release: 12 March 2019
Last update: 1 April 2019