Geant4: A game changer in high energy physics and related applicative fields

• DOI: 10.1016/j.future.2024.05.042
• Publication Date: 2024-05-22T15:21:23Z
• Authors: Tullio Basaglia; Zane W. Bell; Daniele D’Agostino; Paul V. Dressendo...; Simone Giani; Maria Grazia Pia; Paolo Saracco
• Keywords: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology; High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); High energy physics, Software engineering, C++, Monte Carlo, Geant4; FOS: Physical sciences; Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph); Physics - Computational Physics

Geant4 is an object-oriented toolkit for the simulation of passage particles through matter. Its development was initially motivated by requirements physics experiments at high energy hadron colliders under construction in last decade 20th century. Since its release 1998, it has been exploited many different applicative fields, including space science, nuclear physics, medical and archaeology. valuable support to scientific discovery demonstrated more than 16000 citations received past 25 years, notable main discoveries fields. This accomplishment shows that well designed software plays a key role enabling advancement. In this paper we discuss principles innovative decisions basis Geant4, which made game changer related outline some considerations regarding future directions.