Radioactive Decays in Geant4

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new radioactive decay package for Geant4 that combines detailed per-decay simulation with a statistical approach, verified against ENSDF data, enhancing flexibility for various experimental needs.

Contribution

The paper presents RDM-extended, the first package allowing both detailed and statistical radioactive decay simulations within Geant4, verified for accuracy.

Findings

Both simulation methods are accurate against ENSDF data.

The package offers flexible decay simulation options.

Verified improvements over previous implementations.

Abstract

The simulation of radioactive decays is a common task in Monte-Carlo systems such as Geant4. Usually, a system either uses an approach focusing on the simulations of every individual decay or an approach which simulates a large number of decays with a focus on correct overall statistics. The radioactive decay package presented in this work permits, for the first time, the use of both methods within the same simulation framework - Geant4. The accuracy of the statistical approach in our new package, RDM-extended, and that of the existing Geant4 per-decay implementation (original RDM), which has also been refactored, are verified against the ENSDF database. The new verified package is beneficial for a wide range of experimental scenarios, as it enables researchers to choose the most appropriate approach for their Geant4-based application.