Application of GEANT4 to the Simulation of High Energy-Resolution Microcalorimeter Detectors

Author

Hoover, Andrew S. ; Bacrania, Minesh K. ; Karpius, Pete J. ; Rabin, Michael W. ; Rudy, Cliff R. ; Vo, Duc T. ; Beall, James A. ; Doriese, William B. ; Hilton, Gene C. ; Horansky, Robert D. ; Irwin, Kent D. ; Ullom, Joel N. ; Vale, Leila R.

Author_Institution

Los Alamos Nat. Lab., Los Alamos, NM, USA

Volume

56

Issue

4

fYear

2009

Firstpage

2294

Lastpage

2298

Abstract

GEANT4 is a versatile Monte Carlo code for simulating the interactions of radiation with matter. GEANT4 has proven to be an effective toolkit for the simulation of a wide variety of detectors. We are interested in the application of GEANT4 to a new type of sensor technology being developed for X-ray and gamma-ray measurements. Microcalorimeter detectors based on transition-edge sensors coupled to bulk absorbers are an emerging technology for hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray measurements with unprecedented energy resolution. In this work, we assess the ability of the GEANT4 electromagnetic physics package to reproduce measured microcalorimeter data. We also use the simulations to explore the design space of absorber materials and cryostat design.

Keywords

Monte Carlo methods; X-ray detection; cryostats; gamma-ray detection; high energy physics instrumentation computing; particle calorimetry; scintillation counters; GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulation code; GEANT4 electromagnetic physics package; bulk absorber materials; cryostat design; hard X-ray measurements; high energy-resolution microcalorimeter detectors; radiation interaction; scintillator detectors; soft gamma-ray measurements; transition-edge sensors; Electromagnetic measurements; Energy measurement; Energy resolution; Gamma ray detection; Gamma ray detectors; Monte Carlo methods; Space exploration; Space technology; X-ray detection; X-ray detectors; Gamma-ray; Monte Carlo; microcalorimeter; simulation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2009.2022160

Filename

5204692