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AGATA Simulation Code
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For more information on the simulation code and to obtain the actual code contact Enrico Farnea

Last updated: April 8th, 2009

News
April 8th, 2009: several bug fixes. Revised definition of the geometry. Added the possibility to load standard or low-energy treatment of EM interactions separately for hadrons and gammas. Ceased support for Geant4 versions earlier than 4.9.X.
December 12th, 2008: minor changes to comply with new Geant4.9.2 version. Program compiles but changes in the Geant4 configuration files are required to actually run the program (bug already reported to the Geant4 team).
June  26th, 2008: a few materials for ancillary detectors added to the package. Major revision of the geometry fiiles to make them compatible with the actual installation of the Demonstrator Array at LNL. Now the cluster (detector) numbering increases going backward to forward.
November  24th, 2007: minor revision to ancillary detector numbering scheme (including bug fixes). Revision of the compilation flags.
September  25th, 2007: minor changes to eliminate a few compilation warnings. The G4LECS treatment of Compton scattering is now optional.
July  23rd, 2007: minor changes to make the code compatible with CLHEP v.2.X.
July  16th, 2007: fixed a bug with Geant v.4.9.0 and prepared a new patch to the distribution. It is still recommended to use one of the earlier distributions such as Geant v.4.8.3.
July  4th, 2007: the code has been ported to Geant v.4.9.0, however it is not working, most likely because of some problems with the latest Geant4 distribution. It is recommended to use one of the earlier distributions such as Geant v.4.8.3.
September  13th, 2006: the code has been ported to Geant v.4.8.0 and above.
June  6th, 2006: the code has been revised, introducing a new interface to handle Geant4 native event generators. New version 6.6.6 is ready.
February  7th, 2006: the code has been revised, introducing a new interface to handle ancillary detectors and a better treatment of polarized photons. New version 6.0.0 compiles with Geant v.4.6.2 and above.
July 7th, 2005: the code has been slightly modified to compile with Geant4 v.4.7.1 and a few minor bugs have been fixed. New version 5.1.1 is ready.
June 20th, 2005: The code has been compiled with Geant4 v. 4.7.0.p01 and gcc v. 3.4.3. The documentation has been revised. New version 5.1.0 is ready.
January 10th, 2005: The code has been successfully compiled with Geant4 v.4.7.0. No changes to the code itself where required but the patch to Geant4 had to be modified.
November 27th 2004: Fixed many bugs in the generation of events from external files; revised version of the geometry, v.4.3.0 is ready.

The code in its present implementation (v.6.6.6) meets the requirements of the Simulation of Key Experiments working team, keeping the schematic event generator used in the conceptual design phase of AGATA. As discussed in the team meetings, complex events can be treated either by means of formatted external files containing the event structure and sequence or by native Geant4 classes emulating the physics. In these cases there is the possibility to simulate non-repeating cascades with variable multiplicity, the change of recoil velocity along the cascade and there is also the option to emit also the residual nucleus at the end of the event.

The code is based on Geant4. It is presently being developed with Geant v.4.9.2.p01, CLHEP v.2.0.4.0 on a Ubuntu 8.10 machine with gcc v.4.3.2. In principle the code should work with Geant v.4.7.0 and above (up to v.4.9.2) and with CLHEP v.1.9.X, however these earlier versions are not supported any more. Presently the code includes the possibility to simulate three geometrical arrangements:
  1. an array of coaxial (or planar) germanium detectors. Each detector is described as the intersection of a cylinder with a convex irregular polyhedron; clusters are built and placed as a single object. The shapes and the position of the polyhedra and of the clusters are read from file.
  2. an ideal spherical shell of germanium.
  3. a cylindrical coaxial, closed-end germanium detector.
The default option for the event generation is the standard generator available in the previous versions, with little changes to the user interface. This event generator includes a cascade of Mn neutrons followed by Ma alpha particles, Mp protons, Me- electrons, Me+ positrons  and Mg gamma-rays. The possible centre-of-mass spectra for each particle are:
  1. monochromatic
  2. "rotational" cascade (equally spaced energies)
  3. discrete energies (read from file)
  4. "flat" continuous distribution
  5. "statistical" spectrum
  6. discrete energies weighted on the intensities (read from file)
Energies of the emitted particles are transformed relativistically into the laboratory reference frame, following the motion of the source.

As mentioned above, the interesting features for the Simulation of Key Experiments team are the possibility to read complex events from an external file, thus using the code just to evaluate the response function of the array, and the possibility to interface with (existing) native Geant4 event generators.
  • User manual of the simulation code (including the format of the input event file and of the output list-mode file).
  • Patches to apply to the Geant4 libraries to run the code properly
  • Download the simulation code
  • Description of the geometry and format of the input files