DICE

DICE (Detector In a Collider Experiment) is a Geant4-based simulation framework for modelling a typical HEP detector at a collider. It builds a simplified barrel and endcap geometry, runs particle transport through the detector, and can optionally write out history and event information for further analysis.

What this project does

• Constructs a configurable tracking and calorimetry system with barrel and endcap sections.
• Uses Geant4 for detector simulation and particle tracking.
• Supports optional Pythia-based event generation.
• Can save simulation history and output ROOT files.
• Includes a test suite built with Catch2.

Requirements

To build and run DICE, the following dependencies are expected to be available:

• Geant4
• ROOT
• Pythia8
• FastJet
• Python 3 with development headers
• pybind11 (bundled in this repository)
• Catch2

Build

git clone <repository-url>
cd dice
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

The build produces an executable named dice and a test binary named tests.

Run

Run the simulation with:

./dice

Command-line options

./dice [options]

Common options include:

• -f, --filename <file>: output ROOT filename (default: output.root)
• -p, --pythia: enable Pythia-based event generation
• -s, --save-history: save history information
• -j, --jet-library <name>: specify a jet library
• -c, --config <config_file>: specify config file for detector configuration (default: config/dice.toml)
• --check_geometry: run geometry validation instead of a standard run
• -h, --help: show usage information

Examples:

./dice -f myrun.root --pythia
./dice --save-history -p -f data.root
./dice --check_geometry

Tests

Run the test suite with:

ctest --output-on-failure

or directly:

./tests

Docker

A Docker image with Geant4, Pythia8, FastJet, ROOT and Catch2 support is available for easier setup.

License

This project is distributed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.