Abstract
Detector description is a key component of detector design studies, test beam analyses, and most of particle physics experiments that require the simulation of more and more different detector geometries and event types. This paper describes DD4hep, which is an easy-to-use yet flexible and powerful detector description framework that can be used for detector simulation and also extended to specific needs for a particular working environment. Linear collider detector concepts ILD, SiD and CLICdp as well as detector development collaborations CALICE and FCal have chosen to adopt the DD4hep geometry framework and its DDG4 pathway to Geant4 as its core simulation and reconstruction tools. The DDG4 plugins suite includes a wide variety of input formats, provides access to the Geant4 particle gun or general particles source and allows for handling of Monte Carlo truth information, eg. by linking hits and the primary particle that caused them, which is indispensable for performance and efficiency studies. An extendable array of segmentations and sensitive detectors allows the simulation of a wide variety of detector technologies. This paper shows how DD4hep allows to perform complex Geant4 detector simulations without compiling a single line of additional code by providing a palette of sub-detector components that can be combined and configured via compact XML files. Simulation is controlled either completely via the command line or via simple Python steering files interpreted by a Python executable. It also discusses how additional plugins and extensions can be created to increase the functionality.
Highlights
For a long time, high energy physics experiments have been striving to develop software tools for the complete description of detector models based a single source of information
The DDG4 plugins suite includes a wide variety of input formats, provides access to the Geant4 particle gun or general particles source and allows for handling of Monte Carlo truth information, eg. by linking hits and the primary particle that caused them, which is indispensable for performance and e ciency studies
This paper shows how DD4hep allows to perform complex Geant4 detector simulations without compiling a single line of additional code by providing a palette of sub-detector components that can be combined and configured via compact XML files
Summary
High energy physics experiments have been striving to develop software tools for the complete description of detector models based a single source of information. For the success of an experiment it is important to provide a consistent detector description to simulation, reconstruction and analysis applications from a single source. It is envisioned that the GDDM can be constructed through several means, but current development is focused on a mechanism that converts a compact detector description in XML format through specialized code fragments (called Detector constructors) into the GDDM. These code fragments instantiate the GDDM of the detector defined by a set of C++ classes.
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