2023 Planned Features

Items in this list are related to developments scheduled for the current year. Fixes, studies and maintenance items, as well as normal testing, Q/A tasks are not mentioned here, as part of routine activity

NOTE: Items marked with (*) may or may not be achieved in 2023.

Configuration & Software Management

  • Review mandatory and optional compiler flags needed to build and link to Geant4 - (1)
  • Review use and integration of performance monitoring tools - (1)/(2)
  • Review locations and documentation for unit and integration tests - (1)/(2)
  • Modularisation of Geant4 Libraries - (1)/(2)
  • Review optimization levels and options for Release builds - (1)/(2)
  • Add/Support additional platforms and configurations for testing, e.g. VecGeom on Windows - (1)/(2)
  • Discuss potential for development/publication of libraries using GitLab/CVMFS - (1)/(2)
  • Provide pkg-config scripts for use by non-CMake build tools - (2)

Electromagnetic physics & optical processes

  • Infrastructure:
    • Apply clang-tidy and clang-format to EM classes - (1)
    • Reduce number of calls to environment variables - (1)
    • Evaluate possibility for user to define production thresholds instead of cut in range - (1)
    • Extend functionality of combined processes: gamma general, Woodcock tracking, electron general, transportation with multiple scattering - (1)/(2)
  • High Energy Physics models:
    • Provide an option to use EPICS-2017 data for standard gamma processes - (1)
    • Further development on EM models for beam transport and interactions in bending crystals - (1)/(2)
    • Further development and validation of polarized EM models - (1)/(2)
    • Develope methods for simulation of inverse Compton scattering - (2)
    • Introduction of Bremsstrahlung on atomic electrons at high and moderate energies with triplet production - (*)
  • Low Energy Physics models:
    • Use of EPICS2017 cross-sections in G4LowEPComptonModel; improved description of Compton profile - (1)/(2)
    • Improve implementation of MicroElec models for electrons, protons, and ions and extend list of materials - (1)/(2)
    • Evaluate rare isotope EM interactions with matter and polarization effects - (1)/(2)
    • Extend the study on the effect of step size and cut limits to simulation at sub-micron volumes - (1)/(2)
    • Provision of ionisation cross-sections for 0.1 to 100 MeV for Li, C and O ions based on ECPSSR - (2)
    • Deployment of a new model of the three gamma annihilation - (2)
  • Optical photon processes and X-ray physics:
    • Maintenance and optimisation of optical classes - (1)/(2)
    • Further integration of Opticks package; provide example of optical processes implemented on GPU and other processes at CPU - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of X-ray refraction and reflection - (2)
  • DNA physics & chemistry
    • Improvement of DNA physics model for ions - (1)
    • Implementation of electron physics models in dexorybose and phosphate below 1 MeV - (1)/(2)
    • Further development of multi-scale platfom for DNA physics and chemistry - (1)/(2)
    • Extension and benchmarking of electron models based on dielectric response function up to 10 MeV - (1)/(2)
    • Development of a Geant4-DNA model for electron interactions in atmosphere - (1)/(2)
    • Development of electron models for propane - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of a new model for the Gold target - (1)/(2)
  • R & D - G4HepEm:
    • Refactor data structures in G4HepEm, especially macroscopic cross-sections: move from plain arrays to more structured data - (1)
    • Configuration per detector region in G4HepEm: e.g. provide the possibility to use different MSC stepping in different detector regions - (1)/(2)
    • Add missing gamma- and lepto-nuclear cross-section and implement connection layer for tracks from G4HepEm to native Geant4 tracking for sampling of final state of nuclear processes - (1)/(2)
    • Implement the “general process”-like handling of the macroscopic cross sections - (1)/(2)
    • Implement the possibility of Woodcock tracking of gamma per region - (1)/(2)
    • Extend and optimize tracking algorithms per particle type - (1)/(2)
    • Maintain the entire physics on GPU for AdePT - (1)/(2)
  • Validation & Testing:
    • Validation of G4HepEm for ATLAS and CMS - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of EM and hadronic models for medical applications - (1)/(2)
    • Extension of validation of DNA physics and chemistry - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of human normal and malignant cell irradiation with ion species for estimation of RBE dependence on LET and evaluation of DSB as a function of post-irradiation time - (1)/(2)

Geometry

  • Separate safety computation and its state from navigator - (1)
  • New QSS integration methods (Quantized State Simulation) - (1)
  • Review accuracy of boundary crossing in field - (1)/(2)
  • Investigate simplification of touchable implementation - (2)
  • Complete prototype on surface bounded volumes in VecGeom - (2)

Hadronic Physics

  • String Models
    • Review of experimental and theoretical studies of hypernuclei and anti-hypernuclei, and improvements of their nuclear interactions in Geant4 - (1)/(2)
    • Improvement and validation of antiproton, antineutron and light anti-nuclei annihilations in FTF - (1)/(2)
    • Investigate the FTF problem of too optimistic energy resolution for pion showers in ATLAS calorimeters - (1)/(2)
    • Code improvements of FTF and QGS models - (1)/(2)
  • Intra-nuclear Cascade models
    • Code modernisation and improvements to Binary Cascade - (1)/(2)
    • Extension for anti-proton in Liege (INCL++) model - (1)/(2)
    • Short range correlations in INCL and improvements for ABLA - (1)/(2)
  • Precompound/de-excitation Models
    • Evaluation of FermiBreakUp model, alternative GEM model and Multi-Fragmentation model - (1)/(2)
    • Improvement of the simplified treatment of de-excitation for hypernuclei - (1)/(2)
  • High Precision (HP) Models
    • Extension of ParticleHP model to higher energies - (1)/(2)
    • Introduction of NuDEX, to generate EM de-excitation cascades - (1)/(2)
    • Support for thermal scattering data and development of new variance reduction techniques (e.g. AMS and adaptive multi-level splitting) - (1)/(2)
    • Implementation of Doppler Broadening Rejection Correction (DBRC), probability table for Unresolved Resonance Region - (1)/(2)
    • Creation of a new physics list with explicit thermal scattering, e.g. QGSP_BIC_HPT - (1)/(2)
    • Improvement and speed-up of the code - (1)/(2)
  • Low Energy Neutron Data Model
    • Updates to LEND and GIDI - (1)/(2)
  • NCrystal Model
    • Integration of Geant4-NCrystal - (1)/(2)
  • Validation & other models
    • Validation of charm production for FTF and QGS - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of FTF nucleus-nucleus interactions - (1)/(2)
    • Further study of sensitivity of the MC predictions to the variations of parameters for FTF/BERT/Pre-compound models - (1)/(2)
    • Integration of calorimeter test-beams for hadronic validation in geant-val - (1)/(2)
    • Use of fixed-target data and calorimeter data for hadronic validation - (1)/(2)
    • Hadronic validation of selected releases using thin-target data and maintenance of selected tests - (1)/(2)
    • Monitoring and documentation of physics lists with the focus on Intensity Frontier (IF) experiments - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of electro-production using electron beam at JLab’s energies - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of neutron physics with the TARC test - (1)/(2)
    • Validation and testing of thermal neutron transport - (1)/(2)
    • Validation of rare isotopes interaction with matter - (1)/(2)
  • Development and validation of neutrino/lepton - nuclear physics - (1)/(2)
  • Review of the neutrino classes, and biasing of neutrino physics - (1)/(2)
  • C++ interface to (Fortran) Fluka-Cern and applications - (1)/(2)
  • Use of Pythia8 as an external generator - (1)/(2)
  • Muonic atoms development and catalyzed fusion physics - (1)/(2)
  • Addition of charge exchange option to hadronics - (1)/(2)
  • Emulation of hadronic models with generative graph neural networks - (1)/(2)
  • Low-energy hadronic interactions of protons - (1)/(2)

Materials, Generic Processes and Parameterisations

  • Fast Simulation - Innovation / ML-based models
    • Development of ML fast shower models for data generated with Par04 example - (1)/(2)
    • MetaHEP testing on LHC experiments; implementation for FCC applied to LHC experiments - (1)/(2)
    • Build a general validation pipeline based on quantitative metrics for evaluating generated showers - (1)/(2)
  • Fast Simulation - Revision / classical models
    • Implementation and validation of GFlash code with general fast sim tools - (1)/(2)
    • Continuing revision of GFlash models - (1)/(2)
    • Inclusion of detailed vs fast simulation comparison/validation tests into geant-val - (1)/(2)
  • Reverse Monte-Carlo
    • Migration to multi-threading and improvements - (1)/(2)
    • Use of Reverse MC in parallel geometries; investigation of discrepancies for thick shield cases - (1)/(2)
    • Assess porting validations to geant-val - (1)/(2)
  • Biasing
    • Biasing of charged particle interaction occurrence - (1)/(2)
    • Prototyping of DXTRAN-like functionality - (1)/(2)
    • Extend generic biasing scheme for at rest case - (1)/(2)
    • Review of generic biasing with parallel world - (1)/(2)
    • Maintenance of importance biasing and extension to multiple particle type biasing - (1)/(2)
    • Inclusion of analog vs biased simulation comparison/validation tests into geant-val - (1)/(2)
  • Materials
    • Code improvements - (1)/(2)

Particles & Tracking

  • Update of particle properties to latest PDG data - (1)/(2)
  • Performance tests and improvements - (1)/(2)
  • Polishing up code readability and documentation - (1)/(2)
  • Re-design and implementation of G4ForceConditions - (1)/(2)

Persistency & Analysis

  • Regular maintenance & extensions to GDML - (1)/(2)
  • Addition of support for parallel geometries in ASCII - (1)/(2)
  • Investigate more flexibility in resetting/deleting analysis objects - (1)/(2)

Physics Lists & Validation Tools

  • Review of physics lists code - (1)/(2)
  • Refinement of hyper-nuclei treatment for EM and hadronic physics in physics-list - (1)/(2)
  • Improve configuration of combined processed and models per region - (1)/(2)
  • Recommendation/documentation of physics-lists for specific use cases - (1)/(2)
  • Documentation of physics lists examples - (1)/(2)
  • Physics lists validation using test-beam simulations - (1)/(2)
  • Support for changing of model parameters in validation tools - (1)/(2)
  • Further developments/updates to geant-val portal - (1)/(2)
  • Migration of the Validation Database (VDB aka DoSSiER) data to a repository - (1)/(2)

Run, Event, Detector Response & Scoring

  • First prototype of task-based sub-event parallelism - (1)/(2)
  • Review of scoring in parallel world - (1)/(2)

User and Category Interfaces

  • Code updates to C++11/14/17 style - (1)/(2)
  • CMake migration for Python interface in external G4Py - (1)/(2)

Visualisation and Graphics Representations

  • OpenGL drivers:
    • Migration to Qt6 - (1)
    • Improvements to toolbar in OpenGL Qt - (1)
    • Improvements on sceneTree - (1)/(2)
    • Rubberband picking (2)/(*)
    • Fix issue with parametrized volumes - (2)/(*)
    • Adapt to newer OpenGL versions, exploit new functionalities and replace deprecated calls such as glBegin/glEnd - (2)/(*)
  • Vtk driver:
    • Update and consolidation of driver functionalities - (1)/(2)
    • Rationalise Vtk CMake configuration - (1)/(2)
    • Fully develop for medical applications (large renderings) - (*)
    • Generic output format to interact with major application (GDML, VRML, VTK, GL(TF/B), USDZ) - (*)
    • Abstract file driver (mesh, instances, etc) - (*)
  • Open Inventor:
    • Refinements and extensions to the Open Inventor Qt Viewer - (1)/(2)
    • Work on reference path to move through the geometry - (*)
    • Improved use/install of Coin library - (*)
  • Other drivers:
    • Improvements and further developments to native Qt3D driver - (2)
    • Improvements and further developments to tools_sg (TSG) driver based on g4tools - (2)
    • Provide 2min videos for each viewer - (2)/(*)
    • Development of visualisation solutions for iOS and Android devices - (2)/(*)

Advanced Examples

  • Development of a specific example for proton tomography - (1)/(2)
  • Development of a SPring-8 synchrotron x-ray polarimetry example for testing low energy polarised gamma-ray physics - (1)/(2)
  • Further developments of in-silico experimental microdosimetry in the Radioprotection example - (1)/(2)
  • Development of a mammography example - (1)/(2)
  • Development of a new example dedicated to the ATHENA mission - (1)/(2)
  • Implementation of pre-clinical, mice PET images to evaluate a dose distribution for new drugs - (1)/(2)
  • Upgrade of the medical_linac example - (1)/(2)
  • Improvement of Hadrontherapy example in the simulation of proton, carbon ion and helium ion beam irradiation - (1)/(2)
  • Code review, migration to C++17 and coding guidelines - (1)/(2)
  • New example showing how to import in Geant4 simulations IAEA Phase Space Files - (2)/(*)

Novice & Extended Examples

  • New example illustrating generic biasing for “DXTRAN” MCNP-like option and occurrence interaction of charged particles - (1)/(2)
  • New gflash parameterisation example for sampling calorimeter - (1)/(2)
  • New example of task-based sub-event parallelism - (1)/(2)
  • New microdosimetry example for spectra calculation in a cylindrical domain at the specific water depth imitating silicon detector - (1)/(2)
  • New medical example for ultra-high dose rate - (1)/(2)
  • New examples to study depth dose profile and for SEU simulation - (1)/(2)
  • New hadronic extended examples for C++ interface to (Fortran) Fluka-Cern - (1)/(2)
  • Extended biasing examples: fix overlap among B02, B03 and GB03 examples - (1)/(2)
  • Porting of Geant4e and related example to multi-threading - (1)/(2)
  • Porting of polarisation example to the Multi-threading - (1)/(2)
  • Extension to the DICOM reader to support RT Dose format - (1)/(2)
  • Extension to Par04 example to run fast simulation on GPUs - (1)/(2)
  • Inclusion of new cross-sections for gas materials (propane) in the “icsd” Geant4-DNA example - (1)/(2)
  • Add the possibility to use the IRT/SBS methods in the DNA “scavenger” example - (1)/(2)
  • Implement in dnadamage1 example DNA damage in plasmids with IRT - (1)/(2)
  • Validation and development with protons and He4 ions in molecularDNA example - (1)/(2)
  • Maintenance and improvements to chem* examples - (1)/(2)
  • Clang-tidy checks on selected extended examples categories - (1)/(2)
  • Review of examples macros and tests (coverage of commands and use-cases) - (1)/(2)
  • Continue application of coding guidelines - (1)/(2)

Deadlines

  • First semester - 30 June 2023
  • Second semester - 8 December 2023