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 2017.

Geometry

  • Implement use of C++11/14 constructs in key areas - (1)/(2)
  • Progress in the implementation of the Unified Solids library with progressive adoption of shapes from VecGeom - (1)/(2)
  • Simplify adoption of VecGeom shapes with direct interface to VecGeom from wrappers - (1)/(2)
  • Investigate benefits of FSAL/interpolation in field propagation - (2)
  • Separate safety computation and state from navigator - (2)/(*)
  • Implement prototype navigator based on VecGeom - (2)/(*)
  • Profiling and optimisation of multiple navigation - (*)

 

Hadronic Physics

  • Cross-sections
    • Inclusion of fast hadronic cross-section system and its validation - (1)/(2)
    • Complete test suite for hadronic cross sections (with data) - (1)/(2)
    • Review of the Glauber-Gribov cross sections - (1)/(2)
    • Review and update of the Barashenkov-Glauber-Gribov (BGG) cross sections - (1)/(2)
  • High Precision (HP) Models
    • Validation of ParticleHP for charged particles - (1)/(2)
    • Treatment in ParticleHP of the reactions: (d, p), (t, p), (t, d), (He3, p), (He3, d), (He3, t), (alpha, p), (alpha, d), (alpha, t), (alpha, He3) - (1)/(2)
    • G4LEND/GIDI: further developments - (1)/(2)
    • Model low-energy (~meV) neutron scattering in both poly- and single-crystals - (1)/(2)
  • Intra-nuclear Cascade models
    • Bertini cascade parameter tuning - (1)/(2)
    • Extension to strange hadrons in INCL++ model - (1)/(2)
  • Precompound/de-excitation
    • Inclusion of simulation of correlated gamma emissions - (1)
    • Inclusion of angular-momentum conservation in precompound/de-excitation models - (1)
    • Improvements in CPU and memory performance of de-excitation - (1)
    • Making the new GEM model the default - (1)/(2)
    • Tuning of precompound/de-excitation models - (1)/(2)
  • Elastic and Quasi-elastic Models
    • Review of hadron elastic diffuse model - (1)/(2)
  • Radioactive Decay
    • Extensions to allow for the simulation of Super Heavy Elements (SHE) - (1)/(2)
    • Inclusion of beta-delayed emissions of protons and neutrons - (1)/(2)
    • RDM biasing improvements - (1)/(2)
  • String Models
    • Implementation of rotating strings in FTF model - (1)
    • Additional reggeon exchanges and transverse-mass distributions in QGS - (1)/(2)
    • Tuning and validation of QGS - (1)/(2)
    • Hadronic shower effects of string models - (1)/(2)
    • Code improvements of string models (FTF and QGS) - (1)/(2)
    • Tuning and validation of FTF model for strange meson's and hyperon's production in proton and anti-proton interactions - (1)/(2)
    • Improvements and validation of HIJING for p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at LHC - (1)/(2)
  • Design of an interface for accessing hadronic parameters - (1)
  • R&D for neutrino-nucleus final state generator and integral cross-section - (1)
  • Improvements to the photo-nuclear model - (1)/(2)
  • Improvements to the design of the capture models - (1)/(2)
  • Implementation of a Ion Coulomb excitation model - (1)/(2)
  • Validation of low-energy ((1)/(2)
  • Neutrinos: complete the Geant4 interface to GENIE - (1)/(2)
  • Composition, monitoring and validation of physics lists for the Intensity Frontier - (1)/(2)
  • Muon stopping code-factorization and introduction of muonic atoms - (1)/(2)
  • Development of the infrastructure for generating MC predictions with an uncertainty band - (1)/(2)

 

Low-energy Electromagnetic physics

  • Atomic deexcitation
    • Extension of shell ionisation cross sections - (2)
    • Addition of tagging of atomic deexcitation products for very low energy models - (2)
  • DNA
    • New cross-section models for liquid water and biological materials - (2)
    • Automatic combination of models - (2)
    • Cross-section models for other biological materials and incident particles - (*)
    • New chemistry models - (*)
  • Livermore models
    • Upgrade of Livermore photoelectric - (2)
    • Upgrade of Livermore electron ionisation - (*)
    • Finalize migration of polarized gamma models to same software design as non-polarized Livermore models - (*)
    • Implementation of pair production in the electron field - (*)
  • MicroElec models
    • Update to more easily implement different materials - (*)
    • Addition of new materials - (*)
  • Monash U. models
    • Complete recalculation of atomic electron momentum PDFs and Compton profiles for elements Z=1 to Z=100 - (*)
    • Implementation of a new low energy photoelectric absorption model - (*)
  • Penelope models
    • Updated physics processes - (*)
  • Other
    • Addition of Remizovich scattering model - (*)
    • RBE modules for biological damage computation - (*)

Materials, Generic Processes and Parameterisations

  • Materials
    • Use newest data for atomic shells and extension to very heavy elements - (1)/(2)
  • Geometry Biasing & Importance
    • Comparison between generic and importance biasing - (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)
    • 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 - (2)
  • Reverse Monte Carlo
    • Consolidation of implementation - (1)/(2)

 

Particles & Track

  • Improvements in readability - (1)/(2)

 

Persistency & Analysis

  • Support for parallel geometry in ASCII module - (1)
  • Merging ntuples with Root format (preserve row-wise ntuple access and support MPI mode) - (1)/(2)
  • Evaluation of HDF5 output format - (1)/(2)

 

Physics Lists

  • Merging of existing factory G4GenericPhysicsList and G4alt::G4PhysListFactory - (1)/(2)
  • Elimination of template mechanism in physics lists - (1)/(2)
  • Deletion of builders in multi-threaded mode - (2)

 

Run, Event, Detector Response & Scoring

  • Multi-threading:
    • Finalize new design of threads (allow threads to join/leave workers pool) - (2)
    • Migration from posix threads to std::thread - (2)
    • Porting of material scanner to MT - (2)
    • Workspace and memory cleanup in MT - (2)
    • Study support of MT on WIN platforms - (2)
  • Migration to use of MixMax random engine and array interface - (1)
  • Implementation of a phase-space file i/f to GPS - (2)

 

Standard Electromagnetic physics & optical processes

  • Infrastructure:
    • EM shower shape validation and improvement - (1)/(2)
  • Bremsstrahlung and Gamma models:
    • Incorporation of three gamma annihilation - (1)
    • Review and improvement of Seltzer-Berger model - (1)
    • Migration to the recent data for atomic shells - (1)
    • Introduction of bremsstrahlung on atomic electrons at high and moderate energies - (1)/(2)
    • Validation and improvement of the gamma conversion models including cross-section and final state generation in the full energy range - (1)/(2)
    • Introduction of direction splitting for bremsstrahlung - (2)
    • Update Compton scattering model by adding radiative corrections by e- and e+ - (2)/(*)
  • High energy processes:
    • Study on effect of high energy muon scattering due to high energy radiative processes - (1)
    • Usage of rare processes for muon backgrounds for CLIC and FCC studies - (1)/(2)
    • Extension of Synchrotron radiation process simulation for FCC (angular distribution, X-ray reflection) - (1)/(2)
    • Evaluation on existing models and R&D on possible new for search of particles beyond the Standard Model - (1)/(2)
  • Ionisation processes:
    • Reviewed model for sampling fluctuations of e+- - (1)/(2)
    • Refinement of effective ion charge approach - (2)/(*)
    • Alternative ion ionisation models for moderate energies - (2)/(*)
  • Multiple and single scattering:
    • Updates to Goudsmit-Saunderson model - (1)
    • Introduce relativistic corrections to WVI and SS models - (1)
    • Evaluation of WentzelVI model performance with 2nd order corrections enabled - (2)
  • Optical photon processes:
    • Extension to the unified surface model to have both specular and diffuse components for the transmitted photons - (2)
    • Modeling of optical transport in a volume that has different optical treatments on different sides - (2)

 

Tracking

  • Code cleanup and performance improvements - (1)/(2)

 

User and Category Interfaces

  • Implementation of a new backend for UI-command distribution using a message-queue service (ZeroMQ) - (1)/(2)
  • Implementation of a new UI frontend for Jupyter - (1)/(2)
  • Addition of support for MPI-3 compliant libraries - (1)/(2)
  • Provide an alternative way for distributing random number seeds with MPI - (1)/(2)
  • Updates to the Wt driver - (2)

 

Visualisation and Graphics Representations

  • OpenGL drivers:
    • New driver OGLFile to produce image files in batch jobs where there is no graphics card present - (1)
    • Additional functionalities to supports save and restore viewpoint in OpenGL Qt driver - (1)
    • Allow picking on Trajectories in OpenGL Qt driver - (1)
    • 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)
    • Improvements to toolbar by adding more useful icons - (2)
    • RayTracer: use current scene (G4Scene) to determine which volumes to draw - (2)
    • Improvements to Wt driver - (2)
    • Updates to gMocrenFile and gMocren to support visualization attributes and other information - (*)
    • New driver G4DAE exporter for export in Collada format - (*)
    • Updates to OpenInventor - (*)
    • Development of visualization solutions for iOS and Android devices - (*)
    • New PDF3D driver - (*)
  • Full support for visualisation of Boolean shapes - (2)/(*)
  • New tool to support high resolution transparent visualization with ability to rotate and zoom - (*)
  • Evaluate addition of visualization attributes to handle GDML format - (*)
  • Support of user-drawn primitives in multi-threaded mode - (*)
  • Change from flat format to hierarchical format in VRML - (*)
  • Visualisation of GPS source - (*)
  • Integrated visualization of field lines - (*)

 

Advanced Examples

  • Implementation of the LTE/RBE modeling derived by experimental measurements in hadrontherapy example - (1)
  • Introduction of some C++11 specific features/utilities in the examples - (2)
  • Inclusion of Low Dose Rate brachytherapy verification suite in the brachytherapy example - (2)
  • Improvements to air_shower example, adding the capability of simulating and analysing fingerprint at ground - (2)/(*)

Novice & Extended Examples

  • New extended example showing how to create or use a physics list - (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 for DNA simulation demonstrating modeling of neuron cell irradiation - (1)/(2)
  • New example for hadronic activation, demonstrating computation of the activities of an irradiated target as a function of time - (1)/(2)
  • New extended example demonstrating monitoring of steps/tracks - (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)
  • Finalization of dna/microyz example - (1)/(2)
  • Review of examples macros and tests - (1)/(2)
  • Complete application of coding guidelines - (1)/(2)
  • Continue code review - (1)/(2)

Deadlines

  1. First semester - 30 June 2017
  2. Second semester - 8 December 2017