Benchmarking Hadronic Models in Geant4 for Detector Simulations

TL;DR

This paper evaluates various hadronic models in Geant4 by comparing their predictions on secondary particle distributions and their impact on detector performance simulation for the HGND prototype at NICA.

Contribution

It provides a systematic benchmarking of hadronic models in Geant4 and assesses their influence on detector simulation accuracy.

Findings

Different models produce varying secondary particle multiplicities and charge distributions.

Model differences significantly affect the simulation of the HGND detector performance.

Benchmark results guide model selection for accurate detector simulations.

Abstract

The construction of modern detectors used in high-energy physics experiments is typically guided by modeling with the Geant4 toolkit to evaluate detector performance in terms of geometrical acceptance and detection efficiency. Several hadronic models are available in Geant4 for modeling nuclear reactions induced by fast nucleons. It is shown that they result in different multiplicity and charge distributions of secondary particles and nuclear fragments. The impact of these differences on modeling the Highly-Granular Neutron Detector (HGND) prototype for the BM@N experiment at Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) is evaluated.