- Release notes for Fluka2011.2b - As it is obvious from the name, the major revision number of this release is 2011, the minor revision number is 2, and the patch level "b". With this patch release all FLUKA versions older or equal to 2011.2 are obsoleted and they shall no longer be used according to the conditions spelled out in the FLUKA license. 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). Most of the fixes are likely to be irrelevant for the majority of the users, with the execpetion of those interested in damage calculations, however it is safer and recommended to immediately move to Fluka2011.2b. The move should be painless since there is no change in the physics, apart the new functionality which is described below 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. Extract from the release notes of Fluka2011.2 and other previous versions are reported below. - 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. The users should be aware that given the extent of the new additions some problems could occur. The development team has spent a significant amount of time debugging the new features, however we would be surprised if no issue will show up. As it is obvious from the name, the major revision number of this release is 2011, the minor revision number is 2. 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. -- IMPORTANT WARNINGS FOR THE USERS -- We would like to stress once more that whenever activation is a concern or, "precise" particle production calculations in the energy range above 5 GeV 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 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 is heavier on CPU, and results are hardly different above 10-15 GeV, unless residual nuclei are of interest. Also the new model potentially provides a fully featured simulation of high energy quasi-elastic events, which requires cleaning up some FLUKA inconsistencies before being activated. 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 now be considered representative of the ultimate FLUKA performances. The PHYSICS cards allows to switch on the new model (with some caveats about the quasielastic issue) eg with: PHYSICS 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. 1000. PEATHRES - Whenever residual nuclei (and residual dose rates) scoring is of importance, 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 benchmarking and validation. 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 in progress and it will be included in a future patch release -- 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 is still tentive, we cannot exclude some issues with that version. The code has been checked and validated for these platforms/compilers only for the time being. 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 very large. 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 >= 4.4 is required. For example, if on your machine "gfortran" points to a version < 4.4, and "gfortran44" points to version 4.4, you can set GFORFLU to "gfortran44" and happily use the FLUKA gfortran (64 bits) version --MISCELLANEOUS -- The source code for DPMJET and for the version of rQMD-2.4 used together with FLUKA is not yet available for this release. The development team is finalizing the proper distribution conditions for these codes, which will be possibly included in the next release. The binary libraries are anyway available as usual, hence we do not expect any serious inconvenience for users who need heavy ion capabilities -- 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, S. Muraro, P.R. Sala, F. Cerutti, A. Ferrari, S. Roesler, A. Fasso`, J. Ranft, "The FLUKA code: Description and benchmarking", Proceedings of the Hadronic Shower Simulation Workshop 2006, Fermilab 6--8 September 2006, M. Albrow, R. Raja eds., AIP Conference Proceeding 896, 31-49, (2007) The use of the neutrino event generator (NUNDIS) must be acknowledged by quoting - 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. Additional FLUKA references can be added, provided they are relevant for this FLUKA version. rQMD-2.4: - H. Sorge, H. Stoecker, and W. Greiner, Annals of Physics 192, 266 (1989) DPMJET-2.53: - J. Ranft. Physical Review D51, 64 (1995) 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). In the following part of the release notes of previous releases are reported if they are still relevant: === 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. -- IMPORTANT WARNINGS FOR THE USERS -- - Whenever residual nuclei (and residual dose rates) scoring is of importance, the heavy residue 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 benchmarking and validation. 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 in progress and it will be included in a future patch release -- FLUKA MANAGEMENT AND LICENSING CONDITIONS -- This is the third major release of FLUKA carried out under the INFN-CERN Collaboration Agreement for the Maintenance and Development of the FLUKA code. The development and distribution of FLUKA is managed by two Committees, the former, the Fluka Coordination Committee (FCC), which is representing the Copyright Holders (INFN and CERN) and which is empowered for all major decisions, the latter, the Fluka Scientific Committee (FSC), which is in charge of the day-to-day development of the code and of the technical and scientific issues. The cornerstones of the INFN-CERN Agreement are the following: a) the code is Copyright 1989-2008 INFN and CERN, and the main authors are Alberto Fasso`, Alfredo Ferrari, Johannes Ranft and Paola Sala: the Copyright and licensing conditions extend to all the work performed by the Authors since 1989, and therefore covers the vast majority of the code contained in all FLUKA releases or development versions since that date b) make the code available to the scientific community under a License which gives broad rights to the end user c) protect the code integrity and authorship inserting in the License proper conditions d) assure that only official versions of the code will be used, prosecuting in case the use of unauthorized, or worse, pirated versions This release is as usual available in source form for CERN staff members and INFN researchers: the source is now also available for other scientific Institutions. A special download form is available on the Fluka web site for this purpose. The source release includes the Linux-x86 version only (which runs on x86_64 machines as well). The Fluka Coordination Committee, the Fluka Scientific Committee and the Authors kindly invite all users to refer to any of them for whichever question or doubt about the source release and its condition of use. Code snippets setting an expiration day for this release version are present in a few routines: obviously the availability of the source code allows to change it, however users should be aware that under the licensing conditions this is not permitted. The code expiration date (around end of 2010 for this release) is there as a reminder to use up-to-date versions. In no way it is intended as a robust protection, the code distribution is done as always on a mutual trust basis. The "FLUKA User Routines" mentioned at point 3) in the FLUKA User License are obviously those (and only those) contained in the directory usermvax, both in the source and binary versions of the code. Copyright statements referring to one of more of the Authors (A.Fasso`, A.Ferrari, J.Ranft, P.R. Sala) contained in individual routines, must always be interpreted as: Copyright INFN and CERN, Authors: ... since the Authors have transferred their rights to INFN and CERN at the time of (and subject to) the enactement of the INFN-CERN agreement of 2003. A proper re-elaboration of all those Copyright statements is going on. === 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