WinTRAX: A raytracing software package for the design of multipole focusing systems

Abstract

The software package TRAX was a simulation tool for modelling the path of charged particles through linear cylindrical multipole fields described by analytical expressions and was a development of the earlier OXRAY program (Grime and Watt, 1983; Grime et al., 1982) [1,2]. In a 2005 comparison of raytracing software packages (Incerti et al., 2005) [3], TRAX/OXRAY was compared with Geant4 and Zgoubi and was found to give close agreement with the more modern codes. TRAX was a text-based program which was only available for operation in a now rare VMS workstation environment, so a new program, WinTRAX, has been developed for the Windows operating system. This implements the same basic computing strategy as TRAX, and key sections of the code are direct translations from FORTRAN to C++, but the Windows environment is exploited to make an intuitive graphical user interface which simplifies and enhances many operations including system definition and storage, optimisation, beam simulation (including with misaligned elements) and aberration coefficient determination. This paper describes the program and presents comparisons with other software and real installations.