Physics

A metatype for managing physics tabulations.

Attributes

Name Type Description
composites Readonly Table of composite TabulatedMaterials indexed by name.
dcs Readonly Differential Cross-Sections (DCS) for radiative processes (see below).
elements Readonly Table of target atomic Elements used by the physics materials, indexed by atomic symbol.
materials Readonly Table of base TabulatedMaterials indexed by name.
particle Readonly Properties of the transported (projectile) particle (see below).

Note

The physics tables and their sub-tables, e.g. Element components of the elements table, are all Readonly.

dcs

The dcs table contains three functions providing the differential cross-section of radiative processes, as:

Name Type Description
bremsstrahlung function Bremsstrahlung differential cross-section, in m2.
pair_production function Differential cross-section for e^+e^- pair production, in m2.
photonuclear function Photonuclear differential cross-section, in m2.

The DCS functions have the following synopsis:

dcs.process(Z, A, m, K, q)

with arguments detailed in the table below:

Name Type Description
Z number Charge number of the target element.
A number Mass number of the target element, in g/mol.
m number Rest mass of the projectile, in GeV/c2.
K number Kinetic energy of the projectile, in GeV.
q number Energy lost by the projectile, in GeV.

particle

The particle table contains information on the transported (projectile) particle, as:

Name Type Description
lifetime number Projectile proper lifetime (decay length), in m/c.
mass number Projectile rest mass, in GeV/c2.
name string Particle name, one of 'muon' or 'tau'.

Constructor

The Physics constructor has two functional forms as shown in the synospis below. The first form takes a single path string argument pointing to pre-computed physics tabulations, e.g. with the build function. The second form computes the physics tabulations according to a Material Description File (MDF) and energy loss tables (dedx).

Synopsis

pumas.Physics(path)

pumas.Physics{dedx, mdf, particle}

Arguments

Name Type Description
path string Path to a folder containing pre-computed physics tabulations, e.g. generated with the build function.
dedx string Path to a folder containing energy loss tabulations in the Particle Data Group (PDG) format.
mdf string Path to an XML Material Description File (MDF) describing the target materials, i.e. their atomic composition and physical properties.
particle string Name of the transported (projectile) particle. Must be 'muon' or 'tau'.

See also

build, CompositeMaterials, Element, Material, TabulatedMaterial.

Physics.Context

Create a new Monte Carlo simulation Context using this Physics.

Synopsis

Physics:Context(mode)

Arguments

Name Type Description
(mode) string Configuration flags for the simulation. The string must indicate Mode attributes flag(s) with proper separator(s) (whitespace, comma, etc.). Default value is detailed forward.

Returns

Type Description
Context New Monte Carlo simulation context.

See also

dump.

Physics.dump

This method dumps the material tables to a binary file from which they can be reloaded when building a new Physics instance. The method takes a single argument, a filename where to dump the data.

Synopsis

Physics:dump(path)

Arguments

Name Type Description
path string Filename where to dump the data. If the file already exists it is overwritten.

Returns

nil

See also

Context.