GEMC Detector

Detector Definition

A detector in gemc is defined by attributes such as name, mother volume name, type, etc. A gemc detector will translate into geant4 solid, logical and physical volume. It can be passive or active. It can have a magnetic field.

Detector Attributes

The list of the gemc detector attributes is given in the table below.

Variable Name

type

Description

name

string

Name. Cannot contain spaces.

mother

string

Name of the mother. Mother volume must exist.

description

string

Description.

pos

G4ThreeVector

Position in respect to the mother reference system.

rot

G4RotationMatrix

Rotation in respect to the mother reference system.

color

rrggbb(t)

2 hexa numbers for each R, G, B color. Optional 7th number: transparency.

type

string

Geant4 solid type.

dimensions

vector<double>

Geant4 solid dimensions (with units when necessary).

material

string

Material name.

magfield

string

Field name. “no” if the field is absent or inherited from the mother volume.

ncopy

int

copy number

pMany

bool

currently not used

exist

int

on/off switch (0/1)

visible

int

visibility of the detector: 0=invisible 1=visible

style

int

style: 0=wireframe 1=solid

sensitivity

string

name of the hit collection (define the output bank)

hit_type

string

name of the hit process routine

identity

vector<identifier>

Example: superlayer manual 1 segment manual 3 strip manual 4

More details are given below.

Detector type, dimensions

The detector type corresponds to the geant4 solid type. Its dimensions correspond to the geant4 constructor arguments [1] [2], in their order. The complete list of geant4 solid can be found here.

For example, to define a sphere the G4Sphere can be used. Its geant4 parameters are:

G4double   pRmin,
G4double   pRmax,
G4double   pSPhi,
G4double   pDPhi,
G4double   pSTheta,
G4double   pDTheta

so the gemc definition:

"100*cm 120*cm 0*deg 180*deg 0*deg 180*deg"

would build the geant4 sphere:

../_images/g4sphere.png

corresponding to:

pRmin=100, pRmax=120, pSPhi=0*Degree, pDPhi=180*Degree, pSTheta=0*Degree, pDTheta=180*Degree

Rotations

The rotation of a volume is an ordered set of rotation around each axis. The reference frame is the detector mother’s.

The default rotation order is xyz, so that the following will rotate the detector first around x, then y then z by 10, 30, and 50 degrees respectively:

"10*deg 30*deg 50*deg"

To change the order of rotation the “ordered” directive can be used. For example, to rotate around z first, then x then y:

"ordered: zxy 10*deg 30*deg 50*deg"

Color, Transparency

The visual attributes of color and transparency can be set with a string of 6 or 7 numbers. The first 6 numbers are in the form rrggbb where rr, gg, bb are numbers (in hexadecimal) from 0 to 255 controlling the intensite of red, green, and blue respectively.

For example a green detector would have:

"00ff00"

An optional 7th digit could be added to set the transparency. The number goes from 0 to 5 with 5 setting the detector to fully transparent and 0 being fully opaque.

For example a red semi-transparent detector would have:

"ff00002"

Footnotes