MCFast Description

The Simulation Group at Fermilab has developed a new fast Monte Carlo package MCFast for detector design studies. The goal of MCFast is to provide a general framework for the comparison of differing detector geometries and to simulate the production and decay of B hadrons in a collider environment. MCFast, however, is flexible enough that it can be used as a framework to simulate other physics processes at colliders or fixed target experiments.

The code is written primarily in Fortran and C and is interfaced to the standard HEP event generators Pythia, Herwig and Isajet through the STDHEP interface. The decay of charm and bottom particles is handled by QQ, a Monte Carlo package developed for CLEO. A 3-D Graphics package based on SGI-Explorer has been developed to display the detector geometry, tracks and hits. An Inventor based display package is under development

The primary goal of MCFast is speed and flexibility which is achieved through parameterization. The emphasis of the program is fast tracking which is based on a Kalman filter technique. Hit generation has been included in the MCFast package and is under development. An interface between the MCFast geometry and GEANT has been written to enable more detailed simulations. Parameterized calorimetry inside the MCFast framework has been implemented in the recent release.

The current release of MCFast is available on fnalu: setup mcfast

The latest version of MCFast is v5_0.

A copy of the transparencies from the talk on MCFast given at the LHC Workshop at Fermilab on March 29, 1996 can be found here (PS) .

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Updated February 8, 2000

[mailbox] Patricia McBride
mcbride@fnal.gov