No Arabic abstract
We report on the comparison of production characteristics of secondary protons and charged pions in the interactions of protons and charged pions with momentum between 3 GeV/c and 15 GeV/c with beryllium, copper, and tantalum nuclei, with simulations by the FLUKA and Geant4 Monte Carlo tool kits. Overall production cross-sections are reasonably well reproduced, within factors of two. In more detail, there are areas with poor agreement that are unsatisfactory and call for modelling improvements. Overall, the current FLUKA simulation fares better than the current Geant4 simulation.
Several mistakes have been found in recent papers that purport to reanalyze the backgrounds to the LSND neutrino oscillation signal. Once these mistakes are corrected, then it is determined that the background estimates in the papers are close to (if not lower than) the LSND background estimate.
Hadron generation models are indispensable for the simulation and calibration of particle physics detectors. The models used by the Geant4 simulation tool kit are compared with inclusive spectra of secondary protons and pions from the interactions with beryllium nuclei of +8.9 GeV/c protons and pions, and of -8.0 GeV/c pions. We report on significant disagreements between data and model predictions especially in the polar-angle distributions of secondary protons and pions.
The alleged mistakes in recent papers that reanalyze the backgrounds to the LSND anomaly do not exist. We maintain our conclusion that the significance of the LSND anomaly is not 3.8 sigma but not larger than 2.3 sigma.
The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is a satellite-borne detector for high-energy cosmic rays and $gamma$-rays. To fully understand the detector performance and obtain reliable physical results, extensive simulations of the detector are necessary. The simulations are particularly important for the data analysis of cosmic ray nuclei, which relies closely on the hadronic and nuclear interactions of particles in the detector material. Widely adopted simulation softwares include the GEANT4 and FLUKA, both of which have been implemented for the DAMPE simulation tool. Here we describe the simulation tool of DAMPE and compare the results of proton shower properties in the calorimeter from the two simulation softwares. Such a comparison gives an estimate of the most significant uncertainties of our proton spectral analysis.
The highly granular calorimeter prototypes of the CALICE collaboration have provided large data samples with precise three-dimensional information on hadronic showers with steel and tungsten absorbers and silicon, scintillator and gas detector readout. From these data sets, detailed measurements of the spatial structure, including longitudinal and lateral shower profiles and of the shower substructure and time structure are extracted. Recent analyses have extended these studies to different particle species in calorimeters with scintillator readout and steel and tungsten absorbers, to energies below 10 GeV in a silicon tungsten calorimeter and have provided first studies of the shower substructure with gaseous readout and unprecedented granularity of $1times1$~cm$^{2}$ over a full cubic meter. These results are confronted with Geant4 simulations with different hadronic physics models. They present new challenges to the simulation codes and provide the possibility to validate and improve the simulation of hadronic interactions in high-energy physics detectors.