- Release notes for Fluka2011.2x - This is an out-of-sequence release with some important changes physics-wise. Indeed the major revision number of this release is still 2011, the minor revision number is 2, however the "x" signifies that major changes are now included with respect to the previous 2011.2... releases. The rationale for this "interim" release is explained in the following. For various reasons, a full brand new release, which will include a pletora of improvements and new features, is still several months in the future. However, it was felt that at least some important features which are ready for distribution could be backported to 2011.2 and made available now to our user community while waiting for the new full release. As usual, with this interim release all FLUKA versions older or equal to 2011.2c are obsoleted and they shall no longer be used according to the conditions spelled out in the FLUKA license (circumvention of the expiration date is not permitted). No debugging/maintenance/assistance will be provided for older versions. This release contains a few small fixes, and some important physics changes, in particular concerning very high energies, where the Dpmjet-3 code is used. Please note the standard FLUKA references to be quoted and the revised license (which you can find in the LICENSE.2011.2x file, or printed by the code when it runs): PHYSICS IMPROVEMENTS: - The vastly revised and improved (new) Dpmjet-3 is now included, substituting the previous version and removing the need to distribute Dpmjet-2.5 since the new Dpmjet-3 is able to treat all particles at cosmic ray energies. The upgraded Dpmjet-3 results mostly from the PhD work of Anatoli Fedynitch, and it has been benchmarked against LHC data, showing significantly better reproduction of experimental data at centre-of-mass energy in excess of 2 TeV - The default option governing the iterative convergence of the kinematics of nucleon-nucleon scattering in nuclei has been changed providing (marginally) better results in some cases - The calculations of the DPA contribution by hadrons below energy cut-off has been improved. Still the treatment is approximate, so one must run with the lowest possible threshold for charged hadrons when looking for DPA's BUG FIXES AND TECHNICAL UPDATES: - A problem affecting the sampling of the angular distribution of pp scattering at energies around 400-700 MeV has been fixed, the impact is minimal - Some dimensions have been increased where user experience showed that limitations could occur - Several sanity checks have been backported from the development tree in the hope to catch common input mistakes - The #define directive has been improved, now it allows to define a value for a symbolic name, eg #define BeamEne 200.0 and use it in a data card, eg BEAM $BeamEne -- IMPORTANT WARNINGS FOR THE USERS -- We would like to stress once more that whenever activation is a concern or, "precise" particle production calculations are required, the PEANUT extended model, as well as heavy particle evaporation/fragmentation and coalescence should be switched on (see below for details) - Already starting from Fluka2006.3, a new high energy event generator had been developed, based on the sophisticated nuclear physics of PEANUT coupled with the proved FLUKA Dual Parton Model description for hadron-hadron collisions and a brand new Glauber cascade treatment. Starting from this release, this model is substituting as default the old one (PEANUT was already the default below 5 GeV). This is equivalent to: PHYSICS 1.D+5 1.D+5 1.D+5 1.D+5 1.D+5 1.D+5PEATHRES All thin target benchmarks of the code by the development team are run with the new model, the development of the old one being frozen. Only this model should be considered representative of the ultimate FLUKA performances. The PHYSICS cards which allows to switch back to the old model (highly discouraged) is: PHYSICS 5. 5.7 5. 5. -1. 5. PEATHRES Also the new model potentially provides a fully featured simulation of high energy quasi-elastic events, but this requires cleaning up some FLUKA inconsistencies and therefore is not yet activated. - Whenever residual nuclei (and residual dose rates) scoring is of importance, or accurate neutron yields are required, the heavy residual emission ("fragmentation") and the coalescence emission of fast complex particles should be switched on, through the following data cards: PHYSICS 3.0 EVAPORAT PHYSICS 1.0 COALESCE and (as a consequence of coalescence) it would be wise to link with rQMD-2.4 (and DPMJET) and activate ion transport and interactions. These suggestions are mandatory for residual nuclei calculations. Those options are not on by default because the heavy evaporation carries a big CPU penalty which would be a waste for most problems when residuals are not a issue. - There is a known issue with photofission: the photonuclear interaction model is not up-to-date with respect to the present fission model. As a result, photofission can be heavily underestimated at low photon energies for fissile materials. A fix is already implemented in the development tree and it will be included in the next full release. - !!!! MAJOR WARNING, please read !!!! The use of so-called "expressions" inside the Flair preprocessor, those writing pseudo-comments in the input file like !@what.1=-1.5e-2 has been found to be prone to potentially dangerous situations, where FLUKA runs with parameters different from those intended by the user with no detectable warning. This is particularly true if a Flair generated input is modified by editing it outside Flair or viceversa, or in all cases where inputs using the #include directive together with those kind of expressions or similar operators are modified in Flair. The developer team has identified already a few scenarios where because of these shortcomings of the Flair implementation, FLUKA could run with a setup different from the one shown in the Flair screen. Therefore it is STRONGLY recommended to refrain from using such Flair features until a safer implementation will be available (the developer team is working on it). If you cannot avoid using those features, please ALWAYS CHECK what ended up into the input file (and the corresponding interpretation in the output file), since what will be actually run is what is written in the WHATs fields of the input file (!... comments ignored) and not what the Flair screen can show in case they are different. Warnings have been added in the .err and .out files for this purpose. -- PLATFORMS UNDER WHICH FLUKA SHALL BE RUN -- This version of the code should be run on the platforms for which it has been released, that is Linux x86 under g77 (which runs on both 32 and 64 bit machines) and Linux x86_64 under gfortran. The latter requires a recent version of the gfortran compiler, given the incompatibility between different versions of gfortran. For the first time, a Mac OS version compiled with gfortran is also available, on a tentative basis. The available gfortran versions are compiled with gfortran 7.3 (Linux) and gfortran 7.2 (Mac). At a later stage, files compiled with gfortran 6.4 will be also made available for both platforms. The code has been checked and validated for these platforms/compilers only. The availability of the source code shall not be exploited for tentative builds on other architectures or with different compilers/compiler options than the ones recommended by the development team. Our experience shows that for a code of the complexity of FLUKA the chances of hitting one or more compiler issues are pretty high. Therefore users shall not make use for every serious task, including whichever form of publication or presentation, of code versions built on platforms and/or with compiler options which have not been cleared as safe by the development team. -- INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GFORTRAN VERSION -- The gfortran (64 bits) version is for x86_64 machines and cannot be run on 32 bit architectures. The FLUKA scripts recognize which version the user is running according to the following: a) The FLUFOR environmental variable, which can take the values "g77" or "gfortran" b) If FLUFOR is not set, if the directory name contain the "gfor" string gfortran is assumed, g77 otherwise c) If gfortran is selected by means of a) or b), the additional variable GFORFLU can be set to specify the specific version of gfortran to be used if more than one is available. Please note that gfortran >= 6.3 is required. For example, if on your machine "gfortran" points to a version < 6.3, and "gfortran63" points to version 6.3, you can set GFORFLU to "gfortran63" and happily use the FLUKA gfortran (64 bits) version -- FLUKA AND LICENSING CONDITIONS -- Use of FLUKA must be compliant with the FLUKA user license, which is not a GPL-like license. Therefore, users shall read carefully the licensing conditions as available in the distribution tar flile, on the FLUKA website and in the output files. In case of doubts or need for special authorizations, users shall contact contact either: - the Fluka Coordination Committee (FCC) for licensing and commercial questions (fcc@fluka.org) - the Fluka Scientific Committee (FSC) (fsc@fluka.org) for questions related to publications or releases This interim release of FLUKA is carried out under the INFN-CERN Collaboration Agreement for the Maintenance and Development of the FLUKA code. -- REFERENCES TO BE QUOTED -- The use of the FLUKA code must be acknowledged explicitly by quoting at least the following set of references - A. Ferrari, P.R. Sala, A. Fasso`, and J. Ranft, "FLUKA: a multi-particle transport code", CERN 2005-10 (2005), INFN/TC_05/11, SLAC-R-773 - G. Battistoni et al., ``Overview of the FLUKA code'', Annals of Nuclear Energy 82, 10-18 (2015) (this substitutes the following one which was suggested up to now: T.T. Bohlen, F. Cerutti, M.P.W. Chin, A. Fasso`, A. Ferrari, P.G. Ortega, A. Mairani, P.R. Sala, G. Smirnov, and V. Vlachoudis, "The FLUKA Code: Developments and Challenges for High Energy and Medical Applications", Nuclear Data Sheets 120, 211-214 (2014)) Use of Flair must be acknowledged using the following reference: - V. Vlachoudis, Proc. Int. Conf. on Mathematics, Computational Methods & Reactor Physics (M&C 2009), Saratoga Springs, New York, 2009 Additional FLUKA references can be added, provided they are relevant for the problems under consideration, in particular the use of some specific models should be individually acknowledged, eg: For the use of the neutrino event generator (NUNDIS): - G. Battistoni, A. Ferrari, M. Lantz, P. R. Sala and G. I. Smirnov, "A neutrino-nucleon interaction generator for the FLUKA Monte Carlo code", Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Reaction Mechanisms, Varenna, Italy, 15-19 June 2009, CERN-Proceedings-2010-001 pp.387-394. For the use of (the modified) rQMD-2.4: - H. Sorge, H. Stoecker, and W. Greiner, Annals of Physics 192, 266 (1989) - V. Andersen. F. Ballarini, G. Battistoni, M. Campanella, M. Carboni, F. Cerutti, A. Empl, A. Fasso`, A. Ferrari, E. Gadioli, M.V. Garzelli, K. Lee, A. Ottolenghi, M. Pelliccioni, L.S. Pinsky, J. Ranft, S. Roesler, P.R. Sala, and T.L. Wilson, "The FLUKA code for space applications: recent developments" Advances in Space Research, 34(6), 1302-1310 (2004). For the use of DPMJET-3: - S.Roesler, R.Engel, J.Ranft: "The Monte Carlo Event Generator DPMJET-III" in Proceedings of the Monte Carlo 2000 Conference, Lisbon, October 23-26 2000, A. Kling, F. Barao, M. Nakagawa, L. Tavora, P. Vaz eds., Springer-Verlag Berlin, 1033-1038 (2001). - A. Fedynitch, PhD Thesis, https://cds.cern.ch/record/2231593/files/CERN-THESIS-2015-371.pdf For medical applcations of FLUKA: - G. Battistoni, J. Bauer, T.T. Boehlen, F. Cerutti, M.P.W. Chin, R. Dos Santos Augusto, A. Ferrari, P.G. Ortega, W. Kozlowska, G. Magro, A. Mairani, K. Parodi, P.R. Sala, P. Schoofs, T. Tessonnier, V. Vlachoudis, "The FLUKA code: An accurate simulation tool for particle therapy", Frontiers in Oncology, Radiation Oncology Section, 00116 (24 pages) (2016) Extracts from the release notes of Fluka2011.2 and other previous versions are reported below. ========================================================================== - Release notes for Fluka2011.2c - Physics improvements: - When treating anti-nucleon annihilation, negative pions and negative muon absorptions on compound/mixtures, the evaluation of the relative probability of annihilation/capture on different target components has been switched from a naïve “Z law” to more sound approaches - Stopping power in gaseous Helium: the Ziegler fitting coefficients for gaseous Helium have been implemented (in addition to those for liquid He) and are automatically applied when the defined Helium is gaseous (as the default FLUKA HELIUM is) - Stopping power in graphite vs amorphous carbon: the distinction has been implemented following the NIST recipe, however given the very close densities (1.7 vs 2.0), the user must be aware that for carbon the code will choose the one closer to the inut density (eg for rho > 1.85 will use amorphous carbon, below graphite) - Improved fit to the reaction cross section for protons on very heavy targets. The previous parametrizations was increasingly too high for Z >= 90 Bug fixes and technical updates: - Fixed possible crash in the evaporation stage for extremely excited superheavy fragment - Fixed possible crash (insufficient stack dimensions) when using PEANUT at energies above several TeV - Fixed inconsistency in reading repetitive LOW-MAT cards for the same material not immediately following each other - Fixed rare bug in virtual photon interactions - Fixed bug in the treatment of biasing of bremsstrahlung by positrons. (apparently never met by anybody) - Maximum number of USRTRACK estimators increased to 500 - Release notes for Fluka2011.2b - This release contains a few small fixes, one of critical importance for DPA calculations, and a significant functionality improvement with respect to Fluka2011.2.17 (the latest respin of Fluka2011.2). New functionality: - New extended format for voxel geometries/phantoms. Now the voxel files can contain an arbitrary number of extra records of 80 characters each, which are read and interpreted as ordinary input cards. This allows to embed in the voxel files informations as material definitions, material assignments, correction factor etc, which are often generated by automatic programs out of a CT scan. Flair contains tools for reading CT scans in Dicom format, and automatically generates a voxel file containing the material and correction factor informations according to a Hounsfield number to material/density translation algorithm which can be tuned by the user. - Release notes for Fluka2011.2 - This release is a major step in the FLUKA development cycle with respect to Fluka2008.3(d): it adds new features and there are important physics improvements. All FLUKA versions older than Fluka2008.3d and starting since 1989, are declared obsolete and will no longer be supported. Therefore they shall no longer be used for any publication according to the FLUKA User License. New features: - This release, as well as future ones, is under a revised License. There is no practical change for users, however please take the time to read it. An explaination of what some points of the License mean (those that in the past resulted in possible misunderstandings) is available on the web site. - Stopping power models have been thoroughly reworked, and are now more precise particularly for heavy ions. In particular, the Barkas (Z^3), Bloch (Z^4), and Mott corrections have been implemented. - Nuclear stopping power is now calculated and taken into account. It matters only for heavy ions at low energies, however it is an essential prerequisite for NIEL and DPA calculations (see next point) - Radiation damage (Non Ionizing Energy Loss, NIEL, and Displacements Per Atom, DPA) can now be computed and scored. The electromagnetic part is still under refinement, in particular the contributon of bremsstrahlung and pair production has to be implemented, as well as the effect of using the Mott cross section rather than the Rutheford one. The DPA-SCO, NIEL-DEP, and RES-NIEL generalized particles have been added for this purpose - The LPM (Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal) effect has been extended to pair production (it was already active for bremsstrahlung) - The lower limit for photon transport has been lowered to 100 eV. Macroscopic surface effects (refraction/reflection) are not treated. - Several improvements in the hadron-nucleus event generators have been implemented - Nuclear deexcitation by photon emission makes use of an extended database of known levels and transitions. The evaporation stage is also consistent with this database. - The Boltzmann Master Equation, BME, model for heavy ion interactions at low-medium energies is now included in the distributed version. It can handle all projectiles with A>=4 on all targets, with the exception of systems lighter than (alpha, 6Li). BME is invoked for projectile energies lower than 125 MeV/A, however its limit of validity is 150 MeV/A. - The BME is still in a developing phase, it has been extended and improved very recently, therefore the authors would like to warn users about possible bugs, and would be very grateful to receive feedback about possible problems. - A new card, IONTRANS has been added to control the transport/interaction of heavy ions. As a consequence, the EVENTYPE card is now obsolete. - Several new options are now available in order to define spatially distributed sources. Check the manual for the description of the FLOOD, CART-VOL, SPHE-VOL, and CYLI-VOL option in the BEAMPOS card - Pre-built source routines for special cases are now supported under the SPECSOUR card. The first one allows an easy setup of colliding beam interactions. - A pre-built source routine, also available under SPECSOUR, and related auxiliary files and examples, can simulate atmospheric showers from cosmic rays and Solar Particle Events (see the manual for details). - A new body, a generic quadric QUA, has been introduced in the geometry - Geometry transformations: directives allowing roto-translations and expansions for sets of bodies are now available in geometry. They can be applied also to the voxel part, when existing. - The "sophisticated" Compton scattering, including electron binding and Doppler effects is now activated by default for "defaults" CALORIME, PRECISIO, EM-CASCA, or HADROTHE - A few compounds of dosimetric interest are now available as pre-defined materials, see the manual for details - Additional material have been included in the low energy neutron library, some materials have been reworked from newer evaluations, and several materials are now available at 430 K - The old 72 groups neutron library has been declared obsolete and is no longer distributed - It is now possible to use a different material assignment for the transport of prompt and radioactive decay radiations. Only switching to vacuum or blackhole is supported, through the ASSIGNMAT card. WARNING for user routines: the array MEDIUM has changed : MEDIUM (MREG ) --> MEDFLK (I, MREG) I=1 or I=2 for prompt and decay radiation respectively. - Time scoring has been added for USRYIELD - A generalized estimator, NET-CHRG, of net charge (algebraic sum of positive and negative charge) is now available - A new dose equivalent estimator, DOSEQLET, based on convolution with the Q(LET) relation as defined in ICRP60 is now available - The #include directive is now supported in the input file. - There is no longer a default material assignment. Previously BLCKHOLE was assigned to all regions, except for region 2 which was assigned COPPER. Now the program stops whenever a region has no material assigned. Most of the physics improvements are brand new and still unpublished. This version should not be used to publish results about individual model validation/benchmarking (see the license), in particular but not only when the new features are concerned. In case of doubt please contact the FLUKA Collaboration Committee, through fcc@fluka.org. === Fluka2008.3d === Functionality additions: - Setting WHAT(4)=1. in the START card allows to trigger a dump core everytime the built-in abort routine, FLABRT, is called. This can be useful for debugging unwanted situations, which when caught runtime by FLUKA trigger an automatic abort of the run - The search path for OPENing auxiliary files has been protected against user path including directories named "fluka_xxxx" which were erroneously interpreted as the temporary directory created runtime by the code === Fluka2008.3c === Functionality change with respect to the use of FLUGG and VMC (Virtual Monte Carlo): - FLUGG: starting from this patch version, FLUGG is better supported by Flair. Most Flair functionalities can be used with FLUGG, having care to point to the correct executable. In order to exploit fully this capability, please download also the latest FLUGG release, as well as the latest Flair release, both available from the FLUKA web site - VMC: due to several examples of (inadvertent) use of the FLUKA-VMC interface by people/groups who never asked for the required derogation to the license, the hooks for VMC have been removed. A special version with the hooks reactivated is available on the FLUKA website under a download procedure reserved for the authorized experiments. IMPORTANT WARNING: there are hints of possible bugs with the FLUKA-VMC interface. They have been reported to the VMC developers: no feedback up to now. Meanwhile, its use is discouraged even for the authorized experiments. Furthermore, we remind that the VMC interface supports only a minimal fraction of FLUKA capabilities, and therefore the FLUKA development team urges all users to stick with the native code === Fluka2008.3b (patch version of Fluka2008.3) === New functionality: - Compton scattering with full acount for binding and orbital electron motion: up to now FLUKA included two possibilities for the treatment of Compton scattering: 1) "naive" scattering on free electrons 2) Compton scattering corrected by an inelastic form factor, S(q,Z) Now a third possibility has been added, where both binding effects and orbital motion of all electronic shells of all elements are accounted for. This is particularly relevant for low energy photons and/or heavy elements How to activate: in order to activate the new fully detailed Compton scattering treatment an EMFRAY card with WHAT(1)=4, (Rayleigh activated as well) or WHAT(1)=6 (no Rayleigh) must be issued. Don't forget that EMFRAY works on a region-by-region basis. For all problems where accuracy in the physics treatment of sub-MeV photons is paramount, this option should always be activated everywhere, for example by issuing: EMFRAY 4.0 1.0 @LASTREG Please note that the impact on CPU of the new feature is minimal in almost all situations, therefore when in doubt activate it. Extract from the release notes of Fluka2008.3 and other previous versions are reported below. === Fluka2008.3 ==== Starting from this release, the code will be distributed in parallel to the FLUKA web site by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA-OECD) Data Bank. The NEA-OECD distribution (source included) will operate under the same license and conditions, and following the procedures specific of NEA-OECD. A completely revised version of the FLUKA web site will be available starting September 26th. Users already registered should be flawlessly migrated to the new system. Please, let us know through the fluka-discuss list whichever problem you may meet. - NEW PHYSICS AND TECHNICAL FEATURES - Among the new features of this release (with respect to Fluka2006.3b): - New neutron cross section library below 20 MeV, including 260 neutron and 42 gamma groups: 31 neutron groups are thermal (1 in the previous library). All neutron cross section data are freshly computed from the most recent evaluated nuclear data files. Please note that the new 260 group library is now the default one (even though the "old" 72 group one is still distributed). The transition energy between the group and the model treatment for neutrons is now 20 MeV and no longer 19.6 MeV. The default material temperature is now 296 K and no longer 293 K. Please adapt your inputs accordingly - New radioactive decay database, now including also conversion electron and Auger lines - Heavy ion pair production (optional, look at the PHYSICS card for how to switch it on) - New implementation of the BME model with vastly improved performances for peripheral collisions. BME is available on request, please contact Alfredo.Ferrari@cern.ch or Francesco.Cerutti@cern.ch - An improved version of the PEANUT event generator which should significantly improve residual nuclei predictions in the intermediate energy range, and more in general should further improve predicted particle spectra - The ability to convert particle fluences into various dose equivalent quantities, previously possible by means of the special "user" routine deq99c.f, has now been integrated into the code, using the generalized particle type DOSE-EQ (240) (see below for practical instructions) - New generalized particles: * Dose (GeV/g) (DOSE, generalized particle id 228) * Dose equivalent (pSv) (DOSE-EQ, generalized particle id 240) * 1 MeV neutron Si equivalent fluence (for Silicon damage) (SI1MEVNE, generalized particle id 236) * High energy hadron fluence scoring (hadrons with energy larger than 20 MeV) (HADGT20M, generalized particle id 237) - New option AUXSCORE (see the manual for details): * allows to restrict scoring to selected (generalized) particles, for selected scoring estimators. It is a convenient way to implement filters that formerly needed a comscw or fluscw user routines. For instance, it can be used to score energy deposition from a definite particle type, or to separately score heavy ion fluences according to mass and/or atomic number * allows to select the set of dose equivalent conversion factors to be used for the calculation of DOSE-EQ. The default set used AMB74, ambient dose equivalent from ICRP74 and Pelliccioni data. For other available sets please refer to the manual. !!! Please note that no coversion coefficient set is available !!! !!! for heavy ions, so there will be no heavy ion contribution !!! !!! to the dose equivalent !!! - A new generator for neutrino interactions on nucleons and nuclei has been developed and implemented in FLUKA, thanks to M.Lantz, G.Smirnov, P.R.Sala, A.Ferrari, G.Battistoni. The neutrino-nucleon event generator handles Deep Inelastic Scattering (NUNDIS), and production of delta resonances (NUNRES). Hadronization after DIS is handled by the same hadronization model used in hadron-hadron interactions. NUNDIS and NUNRES are embedded into PEANUT to simulate neutrino-nucleus reactions. Quasi-elastic neutrino interactions were already simulated in PEANUT since 1997. **** THIS IS A BETA VERSION **** of the neutrino generator. Some functionalities are missing, errors and crashes are *NOT* excluded. Users are invited to report any problem encountered to the FLUKA developers. Please note that : * Neutrinos are discarded by default, therefore the user should issue a DISCARD card with negative what's in order to un-discard them * Only interactions by neutrinos as primary particles are considered. Secondary neutrinos do not (re)interact. * In order to request neutrino interactions the user should set them as beam particles, using one of the names NEUTRIE...ANEUTRIT as SDUM. * The user can restrict the simulations to a subset of the open interaction channels, namely quasi-elastic, resonance, DIS and DIS with charm production, in neutral current or charged current. This selection can be performed through the PHYSICS card with SDUM=NEUTRINO. By default, all reaction channels are simulated, with ratios depending on the relative cross sections. * Neutrino interactions are activated in "forced mode" : when a neutrino primary particle is requested, the code forces a neutrino interaction to occur in the point (or area) defined in the BEAMPOS card. * In this beta-release, charm production in neutral current reactions is not implemented. * In this beta release, the interaction rate does not depend on the neutrino energy. This means that if the user requests a momentum spread in the BEAM card, all neutrino momenta are sampled with the same probability, disregarding the momentum dependency of the total interaction cross section. * With this beta release, the use of an user-written source for neutrino interactions is possible, provided the following card is added when a neutrino is loaded on the stack: LFRPHN (NPFLKA) = .TRUE. In this way, the neutrino will then be forced to interact at the point specified as starting position in the source routine. In case a spectrum of energies is input, it is the user task to properly weigh the spectrum with the relevant neutrino cross sections (see above point) Already starting from Fluka2006.3, a new high energy event generator has been developed, based on the sophisticated nuclear physics of PEANUT coupled with the proved FLUKA Dual Parton Model description for hadron-hadron collisions and a brand new Glauber cascade treatment. This model will eventually substitute as default the old one (PEANUT is already the default below 5 GeV). It is not yet the default, mostly because it requires a bit more testing and cleaning up some FLUKA inconsistencies related to quasi-elastic treatment. All thin target benchmarks of the code by the development team are now run with the new model, the development of the old one being frozen. The PHYSICS cards allows to switch on the new model (with some caveats about the quasielastic issue) ie with: PHYSICS 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. PEATHRES Please give particular attention to the PHYSICS card recommendations (see below). For all other features, please refers to the Fluka2006.3(b) release note snippets reported at the end of these release notes. === Fluka2006.3(b) === The most relevant bug fixes or functionality improvements are listed below: * LATTICE cards now accepts a mixture of (region) names and (lattice) numbers in order to simplify lattice input (see http://www.fluka.org/web_archive/earchive/new-fluka-discuss/0757.html ) * The memory allocations for the (maximum) numbers of irradiation intervals and cooling times are now handled together, so that there is much more flexibility when inputting a large number of irradiation intervals (and relatively few cooling times) and viceversa. Small adjustments in the usrsuwev program have been implemented because of this * Creating a fluka.stop file inside the fluka_xxxx working directory is going to stop the current run as it did in all previous release. Starting from this release, if the file is instead named rfluka.stop, not only the current run is stopped, but also the run sequence is stopped even though the total requested number of runs has not yet been achieved * When scoring some types of "pointwise" energy depositions, the JTRACK variable (common TRACKR) is set to a generalized particle value: JTRACK = 208 for non-transported nuclear recoils JTRACK = 308 for low energy neutron kerma JTRACK = 211 for EM particles produced below threshold Values 208 and 211 were already set in past versions, while the 308 flag is new. A new variable has been added in the TRACKR common to help identify these energy depositions: J0TRCK it records the ID of the particle that originated the interaction. Warning: this variable is normally set to 0, its value has a meaning only when JTRACK = 208, 211, 308. * A file, Version.tag, is included in the distribution in order to simplify (semi)automatic procedures for identifying versions and respins * The heavy ion dE/dx at low energies (below 10-30 MeV/n for projectiles of medium-large Z's) had a bug which slipped into the Fluka2005.6 release and went unnoticed till now (thanks to Ercan Pilicer for pointing it out), effectively disabling the effective Z algorithm. All users who run heavy ion beams at low energies are warned to moved immediately to Fluka2006.3b: results are now back to those of Fluka200x, x=0,1,2,3,4 and in agreement with published benchmarks * A couple of bugs were still lurking in the Birks law quenching implementation when requested through the Mgdraw routine (thanks to Vincenzo Patera for pointing out the problem). These bugs should have affected only problems with magnetic field, however users who were making use of this novel feature of Fluka2006.3 should better check if their results are still the same. All users whose runs will stop with the message "FKBIRK, NONSENSE xxxxx CALL" are warmly invited to contact us through fluka-discuss since the messages could imply that problems are still around in the Mgdraw-driven quenching implementation * The prompt vs delayed radiation biasing selection through WHAT(4) of the RADDECAY card was badly broken (thanks to Stefan Roesler for pointing out this problem): now it is fixed and should behave as advertised in the manual (feedback welcome) Many other minor bug fixes have been implemented, but they should be completely transparent to end users A few further news of relevance for Fluka users are reported below: * From this release on the support@fluka.org and physics@fluka.org mailing addresses no longer exist. The messages sent to those addresses were almost all about topics better discussed on fluka-discuss@fluka.org. Whichever problem with the web site and/or the registration and download procedures should be reported to the same list as well with possibly [SUPPORT] at the beginning of the subject line * A new list, fluka-users@fluka.org, has been created. All registered Fluka users have been automatically subscribed to this list and new users will be as well. This is a low traffic, one way only list, dedicated to announcements (like a new release, a bug fixing respin, etc etc) which are deemed to be relevant for all users. We strongly invite all active Fluka users to not quit this list. Those no longer active, or anyway whoever so wishes, can unsubscribe sending a message to Majordomo@fluka.org "unsubscribe fluka-users" in the main body. As usual, all active users are strongly encouraged to subscribe to fluka-discuss@fluka.org * A new very powerful tool for interacting with Fluka both at input and output stages is now available, thanks to Vasilis Vlachoudis (CERN) This tool, called Flair (FLuka Advanced Interface), can be downloaded at http://www.fluka.org/flair/index.html This tool should run on whichever modern Linux distribution: users are strongly encouraged to test it and provide their feedback through the fluka-discuss list. All other tools, like FlukaGUI and TVF NMCRC, are obviously still available via http://www.fluka.org/Tools.html The FLUKA development team ===== Fluka2006 ==== - NEW PHYSICS AND TECHNICAL FEATURES - Among the new features of this release (with respect to Fluka2005.6): - New "Input by name"(fully backcompatible with the past): particle, materials, regions, generalized particles, binnings, and estimators can now be indicated in the input file through their names rather than their numbers. This new feature is compatible with the old input way: a mix of name based and numeric values can be used in the input files. The included example input file (example.inp) is now written "by name": the traditional version (exfixed.inp) and a mixed one (exmixed.inp) are also provided. See the manual for further details. - New fission model/improvements to evaporation/fragmentation * Actinide fission now done on first principles and no longer on parametrized G_fiss/G_neu * New fission barrier calculations following the most recent suggestions by Myers & Swiatecki * Fission level density enhancement at saddle point no longer excitation energy independent but now washing out with excitation energy coherently with the most recent studies and the recommendations of a IAEA working group * Fission product widths and asymmetric vs symmetric probabilities better parametrized according to the most recent data/approaches * New, energy dependent self-consistent, evaporation level densities according to the IAEA working group recommendations * New pairing energies consistent with the above point * New mass tables including calculated masses besides exp. ones till A=330. The use of masses calculated offline (available electronically) with high reliability complex models allows, a) to extend to A larger than those experimentally accessible, b) to minimize resorting to empirical mass formulae online which often generate artefacts * New shell corrections coherent with the new masses The overall result in the residual predictions in the spallation zone is a striking improvement for actinides (which was poor before), a nice improvement for non-actinides (Pb, Au etc, it was already not bad), and a global improvement in the mass distribution of fission fragments for all of them. For non fissionable light-medium mass nuclei differences are minor, nevertheless the new level densities appear to smooth out some features and in particular some excessive odd-even effect - An initial implementation of the BME model, available on request, has been performed. It covers light ion interactions up to 100 MeV/n. First results, when applied to positron emitter production with therapy beams are encouraging - Speed up of radioactive nuclei evolution - Lattices: the required transformations can now be specified associating each lattice with a specific roto-translation defined through ROT-DEFI. This is a viable alternative to a user written lattic.f when a limited number of transformations has to be defined. Both methods are and will be fully supported, in principle the user can mix and use predefined transformations for some lattices, and lattic.f for others. See the manual (LATTICE card) for details - An algorithm for parentheses optimization is now implemented in the geometry package (contributed by V.Vlachoudis, see GEOBEGIN) - Activity concentration 2D/3D binnings are now implemented through the new generalized particle types ACTIVITY (234, activity per unit volume) and ACTOMASS (235, activity per unit mass) - Residual nuclei scoring and gas production: protons are now included in the RESNUCLEi scoring, in order to prevent lazy users from obtaining nonsense results on gas production (see below) - Beta+/- spectra now include Coulomb and screening corrections - Photomuon production is now implemented limited to coherent (Bethe-Heitler) production for the time being (contributed by S.Roesler/A.Fasso`). It can be activated by the PHOTONUC card - Explicit primary ionization events can be requested on a material basis. The user must provide the number of primary ionizations per cm (and for some variants of the model a guess for the 1st ionization potential) and choose one of the four available variants. Primary ionization electron energies will then be stored inside common ALLDLT at each step in the selected materials. It can be activated by the IONFLUCT card. Use with care and possibly for gases only. The number of primary ionizations can quickly escalate, particularly when multiply charged ions are involved. No common saturation should occur since the code is piling up all the remaining primary electrons into the last common location if required, however CPU penalties can be severe if used without wisdom - Extension of PEANUT: last but not least, a new high energy event generator has been developed, based on the sophisticated nuclear physics of PEANUT coupled with the proved FLUKA Dual Parton Model description for hadron-hadron collisions and a brand new Glauber cascade treatment. This model will eventually substitute as default the old one (PEANUT is already the default below 5 GeV). It is not yet the default, mostly because it requires a bit more testing and cleaning up some FLUKA inconsistencies related to quasi-elastic treatment. All thin target benchmarks of the code by the development team are now run with the new model, the development of the old one being frozen. The PHYSICS cards allows to switch on the new model (with some caveats about the quasielastic issue) ie with: PHYSICS 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. PEATHRES -- OBSOLETE FEATURES -- - the COMMENT card is deprecated (ordinary comments starting with "*" are of course supported): it is still accepted but there is no guarantee it works properly