Grasshopper, a Geant4 Front End: Validation and Benchmarking

Over the last two decades the Geant4 object-oriented Monte Carlo (MC) simulation toolkit has expanded in its application from high energy physics to multiple additional fields. Geant4 has a number of advantages over other tools, however it requires considerable knowledge of the C++ programming language, as well as a thorough understanding of Geant4’s own libraries and internal procedures. These prerequisites make Geant4 a difficult choice for some research and educational projects. To address this issue we have developed a new tool, grasshopper, which is an open source front end for Geant4. It accepts XML input through the built-in Geant4 GDML parser, allows the user to specify source distributions, and enables rapid learning and fast setup of simulations. In this paper we describe grasshopper, and provide basic benchmarking for a number of nuclear processes as well as validation against prior experimental data. Grasshopper combines Geant4’s power with the convenience of a simple interface that requires ${\mathcal{O}}\left({{\text{hr}}}\right)$ to learn and ${\mathcal{O}}\left({10{}\min }\right)$ to setup a simulation. This would allow for a significant expansion of Geant4’s applicability in various sub-fields of nuclear science, both in research and educational settings.