Update log of PHITS


The latest version is PHITS 3.31.
Details of update features are also written in Manual "1.1 Recent Improvements" and Features of PHITS ver. 2.82, ver. 2.88, ver. 3.00, ver. 3.10, ver. 3.20, ver. 3.24, ver. 3.27, and ver. 3.31

[ phits331 ] 2023/04/19
Important improvements
  • The gamma de-excitation model EBITEM has been upgraded to Ver.2. It uses EGAF(Evaluated Gamma Activation File) to calculate the gamma-rays produced by neutron capture. It also takes into account for atomic de-excitation subsequent to internal conversion. Unless |igamma| ≤1 is explicitly specified, Ver.2 is automatically activated.
  • A new function to use character variables anywhere in PHITS input file has been introduced.
  • A new parameter samapage has been introduced for selecting the data types shown in the same page of image output files.
  • A new option (inucr=100) to directly output the cross sections contained in nuclear data libraries has been implemented in the cross-section and kerma-factor output mode (icntl=1).
  • RI source function (e-type=28,29) has become applicable to self-fission neutron sources.
  • Computational time for transporting charged particles has been reduced by storing the maximum nuclear-reaction cross section of charged particles in memory.
  • A new model has been developed in the [t-sed]tally, allowing the calculation of microdosimetric quantitates based on the track-structure mode incorporated in PHITS.
  • User Defined Model (PHITS-UDM) has been developed, which Users can implement their own “interactions” and “particles.” Please see this page in more details.
  • A new option itgchkhas been introduced to check irregular intersections among tetrahedrons in tetrahedron geometries.
  • Anatally function becomes feasible to analyze the results from different tallies.
  • [t-produce] becomes feasible to score secondary particles generated using nuclear data libraries.
  • A bug that caused electron behavior to be affected by the electromagnetic field even after exiting the field has been fixed. This bug had occurred since version 3.25.
  • A bug that occurred when using JENDL4 and other nuclear data (except JENDL-4.0/HE) simultaneously for the same nuclide has been fixed.
  • A bug has been fixed in which the thermal motion of target nuclei was not calculated correctly when using [t-point]. This bug was occurred when thermal neutrons were scattered, and the tally result was off by up to 20% in the calculation of the energy-integrated quantities such as the effective dose.
  • A new option, negs=2, has been introduced for the negs parameter. The maximum energies dmax(12), dmax(13), and dmax(14) for electrons, positrons, and photons are automatically set to 10 TeV when negs=2.
  • The gamma-ray emission subsequent to neutron capture is simulated using EGAF(Evaluated Gamma Activation File). Previously, the evaluated data was used for nuclei with atomic number lower or equal to 32(Ge) whereas the theoretical calculation model EBITEM was used for the other nuclei. With this upgrade, PHITS uses the evaluated data for all the nuclei from Z=33 (As) to Z=83 (Bi), U-235 and U-238, in addition to the nuclei up to Ge, to precisely predict gamma-ray spectra of neutron capture reactions.
  • A new option of [t-cross] and [t-product] to output the results as a function of LET has been implemented.
  • The areal portion of DCHAIN’s dose conversion factor units, controlled with the idosunitparameter (when using a nondefault value), has been changed to be more intuitive.
  • The calculation methods for the ionization and excitation cross sections in ITSART have been improved to reproduce the stopping powers obtained from ATIMA.
  • A new option (inucr=16) has been implemented in icntl=1 to output the stopping power of any ions and material combination.
  • The allocation method of the memory for storing the geometry and source information has been changed from static to dynamic. Due to this change, re-compiling PHITS with enlarged mdas parameter is not necessary anymore even when the PHITS simulation consuming extremely large memory size is performed.
  • Sample input files for the ICRP adult voxel- and mesh-type reference computational phantoms are prepared and included in sample/icrp folder. These phantoms are distributed based on the approval from ICRP. You have to cite ICRP Publication 110/145 when you publish the results using the voxel/mesh phantoms, respectively.
  • A function to detect geometry errors such as double definition and undefined region has been implemented in PHIG-3D.
  • ANGEL has been improved to convert a tally output file to the eps file even when the vertical axis of the tally result has exceeds 20 digits.
  • Instruction for importing CAD geometry into PHITS via tetrahedral mesh has been prepared and included in utility/CADimport folder.
  • Two bugs in [t-point] for neutron transport have been fixed. The first one was occurred when γ-rays having anisotropic angular distribution (e.g. 4.4 MeV γ-rays emitted from carbon target) were tallied. In such cases, the intensities of the corresponding γ-rays were overestimated by several orders of magnitudes. The second one was occurred when the secondary neutrons produced by inelastic scattering of non-thermal neutrons were tallied. This bug disturbed the neutron spectra to some extent, but it had almost no influence (less than 1%) on the energy-integrated quantities such as the effective dose.
  • A bug in calculating the n-n and n-p elastic scattering cross sections above 1 GeV in the case of icxnp=1 has been fixed. This bug was introduced in version 3.25.
  • A bug in geometry drawing of tetrahedral-mesh geometry with the gshowoption has been fixed.
  • The angular distribution of ground-level muons above 1 TeV has been improved in the cosmic-ray source mode.
  • The sampling algorithm of secondary electron energies in the electron track structure mode has been improved.
  • A new function to reconstruct dose distribution in carbon ion radiotherapy (CIRT) using treatment planning data has been developed in RT-PHITS. An original graphical user interface (GUI) has been also developed for RT-PHITS, which enables intuitively parameter setting, visualization of geometry of beam devices and patient body, evaluation of dose distributions.
  • A new function to detect and show double-defined or undefined regions has been developed in PHIG-3D.
  • A new function to tally a result without contribution from the specified particle in partparameter by putting a minus sign before the particle name has been developed.
  • Installation and compilation manual of PHITS using OneAPI Intel Fortran Compiler (Install-IntelFortran-OneAPI-en.pdf) has been prepared and included in document folder. Since OneAPI Intel Fortran Complier is freely available and it can build PHITS with much shorter computational time in comparison to gfortran, we recommend to use Intel Fortran for compiling PHITS and stop the support of compiling PHITS using gfortran.
  • A Bug in the tallies for calculating history-by-history information, i.e. [t-deposit] with output=deposit, [t-deposit2], and [t-interact] with MorP=Prob, have been fixed. This bug did NOT influence the tally results when the weights of particles were always 1.0. For [t-deposit]and [t-deposit2], only the uncertainties of the tally results were wrong, while both tallied quantities and uncertainties were wrong in [t-interact].
  • A bug in generating dump source using Windows OpenMP version has been fixed. This bug did NOT influence the tally results when PHITS calculation properly finished.
  • A bug in the RI source mode by setting part=all for alpha emitter has been fixed.
  • A bug in the 2D and 3D geometry drawing with gshowwith tetrahedral-mesh geometries has been fixed.
  • [transform] has become effective for ellipse torus and torus surfaces.
  • ITSART, the track-structure model for arbitrary materials, considers molecular excitation of water.
  • ITSART calculates Rutherford scattering by Thomas-Fermi model, which effectively considers scattering angle cut-off by taking into account for screening by orbital electrons. The scattering angle cut-off specified by ruth min(0.01 radian by default) is not necessary anymore.
  • A bug in reading the new format of thermal scattering libraries has been fixed.
  • Several bugs in [t-yield] (the problems in the MPI version, isomer production calculations, and in the cases of axis ,chart or dchain) introduced in version 3.27 have been fixed.
  • A bug in reading fission yield data in DCHAIN-PHITS introduced in version 3.27 has been fixed.
  • Erroneous energy deposition and ion range overprediction, happened when both [t-deposit] and track-structure mode was used, has been corrected.

[ phits327 ] 2022/03/31
Important improvements
  • The source codes of PHITS have been revised to be compatible with NVIDIA TOOL KIT (former PGI fortran). If you want to compile PHITS with NVIDIA TOOL KIT, please set ENVFLAGS=LinNVIDIA in makefile.
  • The memory for containing nuclear data has been changed from static to dynamic one so that PHITS can read extremely large nuclear data without increase mdas parameter.
  • DCHAIN-PHITS has been improved to be capable of calculating the fission yields induced by neutrons below 20 MeV. For this improvement, several fission yield data libraries are added in dchain-sp/data folder. In addition, a new parameter ilchain has been introduced to adjust the maximum chain length independently from the maximum chain number.
  • A new parameter icxnp has been introduced to select the database of n-p scattering cross sections up to 1 GeV. In the default setting, a new database taken from JENDL/HE-2007 is selected.
  • A track structure mode applicable to arbitrary incident ion/material combination has been developed. This mode is applied by assigning mID to be -1 in [track structure] section. By default, this mode assumes that the target comprises a pure element or mixture of pure elements. By specifying the constituent molecules in the [material] section (e.g. chem=CO2), this mode takes into account for the molecular structure of the medium.
  • New output options named a-flux and oa-flux have been implemented in [t-cross] for calculating angular differential fluxes.
  • The OpenMP parallelization becomes available in the anatally calculation.
  • Computational time of PHITS simulation using [t-yield] or [t-dchain] has been dramatically reduced.
  • The maximum number of characters to be read in a line of xsdir has been extended from 80 to 130.
  • The evaluated high-energy nuclear data libraries JENDL-4.0/HE for twenty-two nuclides stored in the PHITS package have been replaced with the files officially released by the research group for Reactor Physics and Standard Nuclear Code System, JAEA. The proton data files of 6Li and 7Li were added in the package.
  • A bug in reading proton-Li data of JENDL-4.0/HE has been fixed.
  • A bug when spatial size of xyz mesh is too large in [weight window] setting has been fixed.
  • A bug in controlling particle weight when a source with weight < 1 is generated in a void cell has been fixed.
  • A bug that rarely causes double defined region when a microbody surface is rotated has been fixed.
  • Several bugs in PHIG-3D have been fixed.
  • A function to read nuclear data libraries in ACE format for deuteron and alpha particle has been implemented. Thus, the nuclear data libraries for all nuclides used in your input file must be prepared even when you want to use the library for a certain nuclide.
  • The user defined tally for calculating DNA damage yields has been improved to be capable of estimating the complex DSB yield.
  • Track structure mode for arbitrary materials has included Rutherford scattering. This improvement applies to the cells whose mID is -1 in [track structure] section.
  • Treatment of escaping protons has been changed in the SCINFUL mode.
  • A bug when the dump source mode was used in the OpenMP version has been fixed.
  • Calculation method and output unit of arc-DPA in [t-DPA] tally has been revised.
  • A bug when the cosmic-ray source mode was used in the MPI version has been fixed.
  • Neutral Kaons decay as K-long (K0L) or K-short (K0S).
  • The generalized track structure mode has been upgraded and renamed as ITSART (Ion Track Structure calculation model for Arbitrary Radiation and Targets). ITSART (1) is about 100 times faster than ITS, (2) consumes less memory in thick targets by flipping particle transport sequence, (3) considers Auger electrons and atomic de-excitation X-rays. These improvements are applied to cells whose mID is set as -1 in the [track structure] section.
  • A function to read photo-nuclear data libraries in ACE format has been implemented. A new parameter to specify the maximum energy of the photo-nuclear data library, dpnmax, has been introduced in [parameters] section. This development was performed under support of NAIS Inc.
  • A function to automatically determine the maximum library energy of each nucleus from the information given in address file (xsdir) has been implemented. In addition, a new parameter lib(i) has been introduced in [parameters] to specify the extension name of the default nuclear data library file for particle type i. Owning to these improvements, it is not necessary to specified [data max] section by users if they want to use all high-energy nuclear data libraries such as JENDL-4.0/HE defined in their xsdir file.
  • High-energy event generator mode has been developed, which determines the reaction point using the total cross section contained in the high-energy nuclear data libraries while the information on secondary particles is evaluated using the nuclear reaction models.
  • A new parameter mxnuclei has been introduced in [t-yield], which specifies the maximum number of nuclides whose yields are scored in the case of axis=chart or dchain. The default value of this parameter is 3,000, which is much lower than that actually assigned in the previous versions, i.e., 96,288. Consequently, the allocated memory size and computational time are dramatically reduced when [t-yield] or [t-dchain] with large mesh sizes are defined.
  • The limitation of the number of particle types (part) specified in a tally was removed. Note that this limitation in the other sections such as [counter] does not change.
  • Treatment of thermal scattering libraries has been improved, with support for continuous energy thermal scattering libraries, mixed elastic thermal scattering libraries and libraries containing SANS models such as nanodiamonds.
  • The Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) mode has been added to the cosmic-ray source mode. A function to generate the terrestrial cosmic-rays to a certain direction has been implemented.
  • A new option (M=±3) has been implemented in [transform].
  • The parameter iMeVperU became effective in the cross-section output mode (icntl=1).
  • A new option for ignoring the peak from Auger electrons has been implemented in [t-sed].
  • The parameter for specifying the source direction such as dir has become effective when the direction of each source particle is not specified in the case of s-type=17 (dump source mode).
  • The anatally function has become applicable to all tallies except for [t-cross] with mesh=r-z, [t-adjoint], [t-deposit2], [t-heat], [t-dchain], [t-wwg], [t-wwbg], [t-volume], [t-userdefined], [t-gshow], [t-rshow], [t-3dshow].
  • The limitation of the shell numbers used in Doppler broadening of Compton scattering energies was extended from 79 to 500. Consequently, iprofr can be set to 1 (default) even when the number of elements per material is large.
  • Bugs in [t-yield] occurred when axis=xy (restart and sumtally functions did not work properly) or ndata=3 & e-mode=0 have been fixed.
  • The RI source generation function was improved to generate all kinds of radiation from decay (i.e., α-, β-, and γ-rays) when proj=all is set. (Note that neutrons from spontaneous fission are not considered.)
  • A new parameter ndata was added in [counter]. In the case of ndata=2,3 in [t-yield] or [t-dchain], double-counting of yields can be avoided by the [counter] setting.
  • A rare bug when many transform matrixes were used in an input file has been fixed.
  • A bug that stopped negative pions were not absorbed even in the case of npidk=0 has been fixed. This bug was due to the change of cut-off energy of negative pions from 1 MeV to 1 keV in version 3.13.
  • A bug in the cosmic-ray source mode for generating neutrons in the blackhole mode and ground-level muons has been fixed.
  • A bug in [elastic option] introduced in version 2.85 has been fixed.
  • Electron track structure mode (etsmode) has been slightly modified. We changed the cross sections above 100 keV. Please be careful to simulation results of ionization and excitation events. The results obtained from this version are different from previous ones.
  • A bug in the positron transport simulation has been fixed. In the previous versions, some positrons do not emit annihilation gamma-rays when they are stopped in a material.

[ phits324 ] 2021/03/26
Important improvements
  • A function to use the stopping power of liquid water, graphite, and dry air given in ICRU90 has been developed. For protons and carbon ions, the dedx files for those stopping powers were prepared and contained. For electrons, the database of the density correction factors used in the evaluation of ICRU90 was prepared, and it can be used by setting epstfl=1 in the [parameters] section.
  • A new function for calculating the response function of organic scintillator based on SCINFUL-QMD has been developed.
  • An algorithm for adjoint Monte Carlo simulation has been implemented for efficiently estimating the photon fluences in a small region from sources distributed in a large area.
  • The evaluated high-energy nuclear data libraries JENDL-4.0/HE for twenty-two nuclides have been included in the PHITS package.
  • A function to output cross sections and kerma factors used in PHITS has been developed as a part of icntl=1.
  • Iwamoto's fission model has been implemented for fission of sub-actinide (nuclide with atomic number less than 89).
  • Gamma evaporation model EBITEM is upgraded to use up-to-date RIPL(Reference Input Parameter Library) -3 nuclear structure data.
  • The weight biasing option was introduced in the xyz-mesh source (s-type=22). Using this option, PHITS generates equal numbers of particles from each mesh and expresses the source intensity by adjusting the part
  • cle weights.
  • DCHAIN-PHITS has been improved to output the statistical uncertainties by propagating those of the PHITS simulation. In addition, the mesh option mesh=tet becomes available in [t-dchain].
  • Analysis function using autorun was improved to estimate systematic uncertainties of results of [t-deposit] (output=dose). Furthermore, this function can be applied for two (or more) tally sections written in an input file.
  • An option to select share/non-share of tally variables for OpenMP shared-memory parallel computing has been implemented. A setting to reduce required memory by sharing tally variables among multi threads was chosen in older version of PHITS. However there were cases that computational speed became slow due to a bottle neck of a process required to prevent memory corruption. Thus a new option to select share/non-share of tally variables are introduced.
  • A new parameter gsline was introduced in the [parameters] section to control gslat parameter in each tally in a lump. In addition, new options for gslat were added.
  • A new parameter icells was introduced in the [parameters] section to read and write binary files of the entire [cell] section for reducing the computational time for reading complex geometry.
  • For PHITS simulation using voxel data, echo of the voxel data is excluded from the input echo in the phits.out file to reduce output data file size and computational time. By setting an option ivoxel=3 in the [parameters] section, you can obtain the voxel data echo as before.
  • A new parameter ichkmat has been introduced to check material numbers and densities of each cell when different densities are defined for a given material number. When incorrect drawing of the geometry by gshow option occurs, this option may work well. Note that it increases the loading time of complex geometry with a lot of cells.
  • Bugs in the use of proton nuclear data library have been fixed. In addition, a new parameter epseudo to control the energy for calculating pseudo reaction cross section has been introduced in [parameters] section.
  • Bugs in the electron motions in magnetic fields have been fixed. A bug in the consideration of the magnetic field map for z-direction has been fixed. A bug in reading proton nuclear data libraries has been fixed. If you used these functions in your PHITS simulations, we recommend to re-perform them.
  • A new option has been introduced in the phase-space source based on accelerator emittance (s-type=11).
  • A bug for ignoring the relativistic theory in the calculation of particle trajectory using magnetic field map has been fixed.
  • A new source option for reproducing the cosmic-ray environments in space and in the atmosphere has been implemented.
  • The user-defined anatally function has been implemented for analyzing multiple tally results, using user-defined program written in usranatal.f. As examples, the biological dose calculation programs based on the stochastic microdosimetric kinetic model1 have been developed.
  • Sources with energy distribution (e-type) can be set in the accelerator source mode (s-type=11).
  • The photon reaction cross sections can be outputted using icntl=1. When ipnint=1,2, processes of photo-nuclear reactions are outputted.
  • The maximum number of isotopes defined in [material] has been changed from 92 to 300.
  • A warning message is shown when a particle is split into more than 10 particles by importance or weight window functions.
  • The athermal-recombination-corrected dpa(arc-dpa) can be outputted using idpa=1 in the [t-dpa] section.
  • DCHAIN-PHITS has been improved by introducing several new parameters and increasing maximum number of materials in an xyz mesh from 10 to 100.
  • OpenMP parallelization performance has been improved by the modification of the source code such as reducing critical statements and the overhead of OpenMP thread private variables.
  • Memory assignment of lattice strucutre data of geometry has been changed to dynamical allocation. Owing to this improvement, the re-compiling of PHITS to extend the memory space becomes not necessary for the calculation with a large memory voxel data.
  • A bug in calculating particle trajectories in the magnetic or electromagnetic fields defined in the data list type with non-uniform meshes has been fixed.
  • Estimation of doses from induced-activities by connecting calculation of PHITS using [t-dchain] with xyz mesh →$ DCHAIN-PHITS → PHITS becomes feasible.
  • The concept of history-counter, which is the maximum counter value of all particles generated in one history, has been introduced in [t-track] and [t-deposit] tallies. When you define a constraint using this history-counter, you can tally your interested events selectively by tracing back to the generation of their source.
  • Functions of independently controlling source generations (ibatch in [source]) and summarizing tally results (itall=4) of each batch have been implemented in [t-track] and [t-deposit] tallies. Using these functions, you can reduce the computational time when you need to run many simulations with different source conditions.
  • A function to output the line number, the subroutine and file names where error or warning message is written in the source program has been implemented. This function is activated by setting ierrout=1 in [parameters].
  • Parameters and equations become usable in the definition of multiplier subsections, except for equations using brackets.
  • Sample programs of user-defined anatally for calculating the biological dose for targeted radionuclide therapy and the dose-mean LET have been provided.
  • [frag data] files of JENDL Deuteron Reaction Data File 2020 (JENDL/DEU-2020) Deuteron-induced reactions on Li6,7, Be9, C12,13 can be described well by the data files.
  • RT-PHITS (RadioTherapy package based on PHITS) has been developed by introducing various new functions into DICOM2PHITS, such as a module for converting PET-CT data to [source] section.
  • PHIG-3D (PHITS Interactive Geometry viewer in 3D) has been developed. PHIG-3D can visualize geometry in 3D by reading PHITS input file, and interactively enlarge, reduce, and rotate geometry by mouse operation.
  • Several bugs are fixed, including the problems in cosmic-ray source mode, [frag data], electron transport in complex electro-magnetic fields. However, a bug in reading dump source file occurred in the Linux-OpenMP version has not been fixed yet.

[ phits320 ] 2020/04/09
Important improvements
  • Proton (E < 300 MeV) and carbon ion (E < 10 MeV/n) track structure codes, KURBUC3, have been implemented in this version of PHITS code system. The implementation was performed under collaboration with Prof. Hooshang Nikjoo and Dr. Thiansin Liamsuwan who developed the KURBUC codes. The copyright of KURBUC codes belongs to Prof. Hooshang Nikjoo, and its source code is not included in the PHITS package.
  • A function to consider the photon-induced muon-pair production has been implemented. This function was developed under the support of Dr. Y. Sakaki of KEK.
  • A new section [Repeated Collisions] has been implemented to improve the statistics of rarely produced secondary particles. Please see Section 5.22 for more details. This function was developed under the support of Dr. H. Iwamoto of Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Research Group for Nuclear Transmutation System.
  • A new parameter iangform has been introduced in [T-Cross] section to choose the reference for formed angle in a-type mesh. In addition to the normal vector to the surface (iangform=0), x-axis (iangform=1), y-axis (iangform=2) and z-axis (iangform=3) can be chosen.
  • A new option opt=5 in [frag data] has been introduced: pointwise data of differential cross sections can be read by this option.
  • A function to read the stopping power of each material from the user-supplied table has been implemented. As for the sample data, the stopping power of protons and α particles in various materials calculated by PSTAR and ASTAR4 were prepared and included in "/phits/data/dedx" folder. This development was performed under support of NAIS Inc.
  • A function to read electro-magnetic field maps written in xyz or r-z grid has been implemented. This development was performed under support of Advanced Software Inc.
  • A new pseudo-random number generator xorshift64 has been implemented. This generator was used in the default settings. The period length of random numbers was extended from 246 to 264-1 by the new generator.
  • 2-dimensional geometry drawing function, gshow, has been improved to properly depict complicated geometry defined by voxel or tetrahedron.
  • Several activation cross section libraries used for DCHAIN-PHITS have been developed, and their hybrid library has been selected as the default library. In addition, the decrease of target nuclides due to nuclear reaction has been automatically considered by setting the default values of itdecs and itdecn to 1.
  • A bug of providing particle energy in MeV/n instead of MeV/u with ATIMA was fixed. Owing to this revision, the range of charged particle slightly changed - approximately 1% at the maximum. In addition, the unit of ion energy in PHITS is not MeV/u but MeV/n, and the PHITS manual as well as input echo were revised accordingly.
  • The power index of the Maxwellian energy distribution source (e-type=3, 7) has become changeable, and its default value was set to 0.5. Note that the former versions of PHITS set the power index to 1.0, but they could not properly reproduce the Maxwellian distribution.
  • A new function was implemented to estimate systematic uncertainties of tally results based on analysis variance (ANOVA). Effects caused by errors of input information can be estimated by this function. Furthermore, script files autorun (autorun.bat & autorun.sh) were improved for analysis function in PHITS. The scripts successively execute PHITS by slightly varying input values.
  • Documents for the connection calculation between PHITS and FLUENT were made. See files in "/phits/utility/usrtally/FLUENT" in detail.

[ phits317 ] 2019/10/31
Important improvements
  • The bug of MPI parallel calculations with tetrahedral-geometry stopped abruptly in ver. 3.10 has been fixed.
  • The bug that the magnetic field maps given in r-z grid (type=-2 or -4) cannot be properly considered has been fixed.
  • Annihilation photons are double counted in the RI source generation function when the production of both positron and photon are considered. To avoid the problem, a new parameter iannih has been introduced to exclude the annihilation photons in the case of proj=photon.
  • The new parameters cnt(1), cnt(2), and cnt(3) have been introduced in [source] section to specify the initial counter values for each multi-source subsection . The maximum number of subsections is extended from 200 to 500.
  • A function to consider the decrease of target radioactive nuclides due to nuclear reactions has been implemented in [t-dchain]. DCHAIN has also been revised in correspondance to the [t-dchain] improvement. Note that former versions of DCHAIN cannot read the outputs from the improved [t-dchain].
  • The itall=1 option has become available in the Windows OpenMP version of PHITS.
  • Some bugs regarding the FLUENT-PHITS coupled calculations have been fixed, including the incorrect translation of the material densities between FLUENT and PHITS.
  • The default value of the cut-off energy for proton, pion, muon, and ions has been decreased from 1 MeV/u to 1 keV/u.
  • A new source type (s-type=26) has been introduced to define a surface source which generates source particles on the surface(s) that has/have been pre-defined in the [surface] section.
  • A new option, itall=3, has been implemented to plot the trend of tally results and their statistical uncertainties for each batch with the ongoing PHITS calculation. This option is available only for [t-track] and [t-point] at this moment.
  • A new parameter, istdcut, has been introduced to the [parameter] section. It enables the termination of the tally calculations of which the statistical uncertainties have reached the stdcut setting. This function is particularly useful when the types of tallies which consume much longer computational time, such as [t-point] and [t-sed], are written in the same input file with other tallies. Another new parameter, istdbat, has been introduced to inactivate stdcut at the early stage of the PHITS simulation.
  • In stopping power calculations using ATIMA, the ionization potential of water is expected to automatically adjust to 75 eV. However, this function was valid only when the material of water was explicitly specified by the isotope 1H, i.e. material consists of natural abundant hydrogen is not treated as water in this particular respect. We modified the program, so that the material of water which is defined by naturally-abundant hydrogen isotopes, such as in the format of H 2 O 1 and H -0.1111 O -0.8889, is now regard as water for stopping power calculations. Owing to this modification, the ranges of charged particles in water increase slightly (less than 1% in most cases) compared to the results obtained from the previous versions. The valid condition of ih2o parameter has been also revised in the same way.
  • Some bugs have been fixed, such as ignorance of stdcut in the MPI version, strange behavior of particles when mirror surfaces are used in lattice structure, and a rare bug in the EGS mode.
  • DCHAIN-SP has been improved in terms of the following two features;
    1. Several neutron activation libraries and decay-data libraries have been developed based on the latest evaluated data
    2. Statistical uncertainties of the induced activities can be evaluated considering those of the production yields calculated by PHITS.
    Owing to these improvements, some parameters have been added to [t-dchain] section. The new version of DCHAIN will be called DCHAIN-PHITS to be distinguished with the previous versions.
  • A new function to calculate the DNA damage yields has been developed, using the track structure mode and user-defined tally.
  • Two bugs occurred only in version 3.13 have been fixed, which are related to [t-interact] and the track structure mode.
  • The bug that [t-deposit] overestimates contributions of the energy cut-off in the EGS mode has been fixed. Furthermore, another bug when using the EGS mode and lattice structure has been fixed. The former and latter bugs occurred from version 3.13 and 3.10, respectively.
  • The bug regarding the function when setting itall=3 has been fixed. Segmentation errors occurred depending on input files. This bug occurred from version 3.13.
  • The bug of DCHAIN, which occurred only in version 3.14, has been fixed.
  • The bug for sangel parameter has fixed.
  • The bug in ver. 3.15 that [t-track] tally does not output _err files has also been fixed.
  • A new option foamout=2 to output the tetrahedral-mesh tally results in csv format has been implemented.
  • The bug in the [t-deposit] calculation using EGS5 was fixed. This bug was due to uninitialization of a certain variable in PHITS, so it occasionally causes a serious influences on the tally results, but in most case not.
  • The calculation procedures for 'sum over' in many tallies have been revised.
  • The bug in the motion of cut-off particles with energy struggling when nedisp=1 has been fixed.
  • The parameters used in the biological dose calculation using "usrdfn2.f" were changed from those given in T.Sato et al. Radiat. Prot. Dosim. 143, 491-496 (2010) to T.Sato et al. Radiat. Res. 171, 107-117 (2009).

[ phits310 ] 2019/04/09
Important improvements
  • A new function to generate source particles from tetrahedron geometry was implemented.
  • mesh=xyz became available in [weight window] and [t-wwg] sections.
  • Coefficients depending on particle type can be defined in [multiplier] section, using part parameter. Owing to this improvement, several types of radiation doses can be directly calculated using pre-defined [multiplier] sections.
  • [t-deposit] with output=deposit can be used in the case that source weight is not 1.
  • A bug in [t-deposit] in the cases of output=deposit, dresol≠0 and part≠all was fixed.
  • A bug in the range calculation of charged nuclei in some tallies when iMeVperu=1 was fixed.
  • The probability density of the number of interactions by individual history can be outputted from [t-star]. The number of interactions occurred in the track-structure mode can be also counted in the tally. In addition, the tally name was changed to [t-interact] in order to explicitly state that it is the tally for counting the number of interactions, though the former name [t-star] can still be accepted.
  • The function to calculate the deposition energy using kerma approximation, which used to be implemented only in [t-heat], became available in [t-deposit]. Necessity of the use of kerma approximation in the energy deposition calculation is automatically judged based on the status of e-mode and negs specified in [parameters] section. Owing to this improvement, we recommend to use [t-deposit] instead of [t-heat] in all situations of deposition energy calculations.
  • [t-deposit] with output=deposit can be used in the case that weight is not always 1 unless weights of energy depositing particles change within one history. Then, this mode works in the cases that you set s-type=9 and dir=-all in [source] section, or you use [forced collisions] for neutral particles.
  • The graph style for [t-cross] with axis=z is changed from histogram to dot & line.
  • Specification of z-type=1 and nz=0 is allowed for [t-cross] to calculate fluences of particles passing through a certain surface.
  • Numbers of delta-rays produced by ions (including protons) and knock-on electrons produced by electron scattering can be separately calculated in [t-interact] section. In addition, they can be distinguished in [counter] section too.
  • RI source function was improved to produce Auger electrons even when the Auger electron spectrum data are not included in RIsource.ack.
  • A bug in [t-product] in the case of iMeVperu=1 was fixed.
  • By defining igamma as negative, Doppler effect owing to the motion of the emitter nuclei is disregarded. Specific gamma-rays are observed as mono-energetic peak in the energy spectrum.
  • GEM Ver.2 including nucleon-gamma emission competition was developed. This version is available by setting ngem=2 in [parameters] section.
  • New format of [transform] was implemented to de?ne rotation around z,y,x axes simply.
  • The distributed-memory parallel computing using a MPI protocol became available on Windows.
  • mesh=xyz became available in [weight window] for EGS5.
  • Conversion coefficients for soft error rates on semiconductor devices were added to default data of [multiplier].
  • The user-defined activation cross section data can be used in the [t-yield] and [t-dchain] sections.
  • For RI sources, characteristics x-ray and internal conversion electron are now considered.
  • Tetrahedral geometries that are converted from CAD can now be used, even when the surface of tetrahedron does not perfectly match the boundary surfaces.
  • The parameters (c1-c99) specified in the input file can be used in the user-defined source file ("usrsors.f").
  • The high-speed mode of ANGEL, which does not check numerical data while plotting the results, has become the default.
  • For cylindrical sources (s-type=1), a few bugs, such as the bug occurring when a source particle is sampled between 0 and r1 with the setting of r0=r1, have been fixed.
  • Procedure for coupling PHITS with thermal analysis software such as ANSYS Fluent is established. For this purpose, a function to read tetrahedral-mesh geometry written in bulk-data format of NASTRAN is implemented. A new mesh option, mesh=tet, is introduced in [t-track], [t-deposit], [t-yield], [t-product], and [t-dpa] to output the tallied quantities in each tetrahedral mesh. Field-data format used in OpenFoam, which can be directly read by thermal analysis software, has become selected as an output format.
  • As a part of the improvements for coupling with thermal analysis software, a new option, unit=5, is introduced in [t-deposit] to output the deposition energy in J/m3/source.
  • Sample ?les for using high-energy nuclear data library JENDL-4.0/HE are provided in the PHITS package.
  • A function to read magnetic ?eld maps written in xyz or r-z grid is implemented.
  • [t-dchain] has become applicable to mesh=xyz. In reply to this improvement, DCHAIN-SP is also updated. Note that the function to visualize the induced activities in xyz mesh has not been developed yet.
  • Error and warning ID numbers are introduced for some messages.
  • A nuclear reaction model to handle the reactions by electron-, mu-, tau-neutrino and their antiparticles up to 150 MeV of incident energy is incorporated. Neutrinos can interact with orbital electrons, 1H, and 2H whereas the nuclei heavier than 2H are currently out of the range of this model.
  • INC-ELF, an intra-nuclear cascade model developed by Kyushu University, is updated to consider collective excitation of the target nucleus and to precisely calculate charged particle emission barriers.
  • Electron track-structure mode is improved to consider the production of Auger electrons.
  • User-defined energy resolution function has been implemented to [T-deposit] in order to reproduce energy resolution which cannot be realized by dresol and dfano. Users can de?ne the functional forms of energy resolution in "usresol.f," which is activated by defining negative dresol. As a sample, the default "usresol.f" contains a numerical model proposed by Meleshenkovskii et al. to reproduce asymmetric peaks of a CdZnTe detector.
  • A new option, gshow=5 and [t-gshow] with output=10, is introduced to visualize the geometry in the pixel format. This option is useful for properly visualize the geometries with ?ne structure such as voxel and tetrahedral phantoms.
  • Time for reading lattice structure is reduced by introducing compressed format.
  • Some parameters in the muonic atom cascade program have become adjustable.
  • The third user-defined function, "usrdfn3.f," is introduced for weighting the results of [t-deposit]. The default program of usrdfn3.f can convert the absorbed dose to the water equivalent dose, which is frequently used in medical physics.
  • Remaining batch number has become adjustable using "batch.out."
  • In [t-cross] with mesh=xyz or r-z, a new option, enclose=1, is introduced for calculating incoming and outgoing particle fluxes (or currents) from each mesh.
  • Deposition energies in the cells with the same ID but placed in different lattice coordinates can be separately analyzed in the case of [t-deposit] with output=deposit.
  • Nuclear data libraries containing more than 1000 γ-ray spectra such as the latest version of ENDF and JEFF have become acceptable in PHITS.
  • The fixed charge mode, ifixchg=1, is introduced for calculating the stopping power of particles with a certain charge state. Note the charge exchange reaction has not been implemented yet, so the fixed charge mode is appropriate only when target material is extremely thin at this moment.
  • Several bugs are fixed, including the problem in positron transport when emin(12) is specified without specifying emin(13), and that in electron and positron transports in the magnetic ?eld defined at a lattice structure.

[ phits302 ] 2017/12/05
Important improvements
  • New parameters nudtvar and udtvar(i) were introduced for [t-userdefined]
  • New options were implemented for the unit of [t-let] and [t-sed]
  • The bug in the calculation of angular straggling using nspred = 2 was fixed. This bug was introduced in PHITS2.96, and calculation results for charged particle beam using the versions between 2.96 and 3.01 might be strange.
  • A special ANGEL parameter sangel was introduced to insert all ANGEL parameters into tally output files.
  • Reading algorithm for tetrahedral geometry was revised to reduce the computational time
  • ANGEL was revised to reduce the computational time for making eps files of 2-dimensional plots

[ phits300 ] 2017/10/17
Important improvements
  • In the default setting, "c" became unusable as comment marks in [material] section in order to avoid an error that the elemental symbol for carbon, C, is read as comment marks. When you use "c" as comment marks in the section, set icommat=1 in [parameters] section.
  • A new option of [t-deposit] was developed to sum up the deposit energies weighted by user defined conditions. This option can be applied to simulation, for example soft errors in semiconductor devices.
  • A new function to use results of tallies as an energy distribution of source particles was added in [source]. This function can be used by specifying e-type=20.
  • User defined function 2 (usrdfn2.f) in [t-deposit] was changed to the new option to estimate biological dose on the basis of Microdosimetric Kinetic Model. See the paper in more detail.
  • A new function to analyze the motion of electrons and positrons in the electro-magnetic fields was implemented.
  • The default value of the ascat2 parameter introduced in version 2.77 was revised from 0.088 to 0.038, in accordance with the original paper. The PHITS results obtained by setting nspred=2 without specifying ascat2 will be changed.
  • A new function to generate xyz-mesh distribution source was implemented. Using this function, you can reproduce sources having a complex spatial distribution.
  • A new tally named [t-volume] was developed in order to automatically calculate the volume of each cell.
  • A new parameter timeout was introduced in the [parameters] section. When CPU time exceeds this value, the PHITS simulation is automatically stopped.
  • A new parameter stdcut was introduced in each tally. When the all statistical uncertainties of the tally results become less than this value, the PHITS simulation is automatically stopped.
  • Nuclear and atomic interactions are explicitly distinguished in [t-product], [t-star], and [counter]. Information on further detailed channels such as the production of bremsstrahlung can be also deduced.
  • A new function to display error bars of statistical uncertainties in eps files of tally results was implemented. This function is available by setting epsout=2 in each tally section.
  • Some bugs in the combination of EGS5 and [t-cross] or [t-track] were fixed.
  • The default setting of output in [t-dchain] tally changed to cutoff in order to score particles stopped in specified regions. Note that in the previous setting output=product heavy ions produced in a thin target were scored even though the ions don't stop in the target.
  • A new parameter file(1) was introduced to specify the PHITS installation folder name. When you properly set this parameter, you do not have to specify the name of other input files i.e. file(7, 20, 21, 24, and 25) unless you have changed the folder structure of PHITS.
  • A new parameter nucdata was introduced to automatically adjust emin(2) and dmax(2) parameters suitable for JENDL-4.0. The default value of this parameter is set to 1, i.e. neutrons below 20 MeV are automatically transported using nuclear data library.
  • A new option for negs parameter, -1, was introduced. When you set negs=-1, PHITS treats photon transport using the original algorithm (i.e. not EGS5), and ignores the electron and positron transport. This option is selected as the default setting.
  • The default value of ides parameter was changed to 1, i.e. photon does not produce electrons in the PHITS original algorithm. If you would like to transport electrons and positrons, you have to use EGS5.
  • The default value of igamma parameter was changed to 2, i.e. γ-rays are produced in the de-excitation process based on EBITEM model in the default setting.
  • RI source function was improved to be applicable to α and β decays including Auger electron production.
  • Track-structure mode was developed in PHITS. Using this mode, PHITS can analyze ionization, excitation, and oscillation induced by electrons and positrons event-by-event.
  • A new method for calculating the energy loss of charged particles with explicitly generating δ-rays was developed, based on their restricted stopping power. This method is selected as the default setting, i.e. irlet=1.
  • JAMQMD, which is used for simulating nucleus-nucleus interactions above 3 GeV/u, was improved to consider the relativistic effect.
  • [t-dpa] was improved to be capable of calculating DPA by electrons, positrons, pions etc.
  • Bug in the normalization process of the self-fission source (ispfs option) was fixed.
  • The procedure for s-type depending on the setting of the energy of source particles was changed. The mono-energetic and energy-distributed sources can be defined by setting e0 and e-type, respectively, irrespective of the value of s-type. If both e0 and e-type are defined, the energy is decided according to the previous procedure of s-type.
  • A new section [ww bias] and a new tally [t-wwbg] were implemented to bias [weight window] to obtain better statistics for a certain direction.
  • The numerical data of tally results are outputted after each batch is finished even for itall=0 (default). Thus, the difference between itall=1 and 0 is whether the image (*.eps) files are generated or not.
  • Only related tallies to the setting of the icntl parameter work. For example, all tallies except for [t-volume] are disabled when icntl=14, while [t-volume] is disabled when icntl≠14. Warning is outputted when infl or set command is written in the disabled section.
  • Some ANGEL parameters were introduced to change the length or time axis of figures. For example, you can draw a figure of spatial dose distribution with the axis in nm scale by setting angel=cmnm in the tally.
  • PHITS execution is terminated when two or more [parameters] sections exist in one input file.
  • A new parameter iMeVperu was introduced to convert the unit of nucleus energy [MeV] to [MeV/u] in outputs of all tallies. By setting of iMeVperu=1 in [parameters], all tally results are output with the unit of MeV/u for the nucleus energy.
  • New parameters r-from and r-to in [t-cross] with mesh=reg were added, because conventional parameters r-in and r-out were confusing. r-from and r-to can be used instead of r-in and r-out, respectively.
  • The option of the stopping power ndedx=3 became applicable for target nuclei with the mass number of 93≤ Z≤ 97 (from Np to Bk).
  • By adding "$OMP=N" (N is the number of CPU cores to be used) before the first section in a PHITS input file, the shared-memory parallel computing using OpenMP is executed. Even when infl: is set, a line of "file=input file name" is not required. In Mac OS, a terminal window is opened when PHITS is executed by drag and drop on the Dock. Note that these function are not available when to run PHITS on the command line on Linux and so on.
  • The default value of the switching energy from JQMD to JAMQMD, ejamqmd, was changed to 3GeV.
  • The Kurotama model was used as the default model to give nucleus-nucleus reaction cross sections.
  • The natural isotope expansion was effective in input files of DCHAIN-SP generated by [t-dchain].

[ phits288 ] 2016/09/30
Important improvements
  • Neutron decay can be considered. Mean life time of neutron is approximately 886.7 sec.
  • Bug in the treatment of the Doppler effect using the EGS5 mode was fixed. Bug in the high-energy photon transport (approximately above 10 MeV) using EGS5 mode was fixed. You do not have to set "deltm = large value" anymore.
  • Bug in the capture reaction of negative muon when 1H is included in the material was fixed.
  • The unit of esmin and esmax parameters is changed from MeV to MeV/u. These parameters define the minimum and maximum energy of charged particles treated in the simulation, respectively.
  • Algorithm of stopping power calculation ATIMA in PHITS was improved to reduce the computational time. Then, the default model for calculating stopping power was changed from SPAR to ATIMA.
  • High-energy heavy ion reaction model, JAMQMD, which works above 3 GeV/u, was improved to JAMQMD2, in the same manner as JQMD. The accuracy as well as the stability of the calculation are improved, particularly for cosmic-ray simulation.
  • The pion total reaction cross section model was improved, and employed as the default model.
  • A new model for deuteron-nucleus total reaction cross sections was introduced. This model can be used by setting icrdm=1 in [parameters] section. See this paper in more detail.
  • Muon nuclear reaction model was improved. See this paper in more detail.
  • A new section [Data Max] was introduced to specify the dmax parameter for each nucleus and material.
  • A new parameter natural was introduced. When you define an element without specifying its mass number in [material] section, and set natural = 1 or 2, PHITS assumes that it has natural isotope composition.
  • The RI-source function was implemented. Using this function, PHITS can generate photon sources with energy spectra of radioisotope (RI) decay by simply specifying the activity and name of the RIs. Nuclear decay database DECDC was used in this function. This database is equivalent to ICRP107.
  • The name of file to output the current batch information was changed from batch.now to batch.out. You can specify this file name by setting file(22) in [parameters] section.
  • A function to output the tally results in xyz-mesh in the input format of ParaView.
  • A new tally [t-wwg] was introduced. Using this tally, you can automatically determine an appropriate setting for the [Weight Window] section.
  • The arrows to indicate the xyz coordinates are depicted in [t-3dshow] tally.
  • Two options of the function about user defined cross sections were developed. One is an extrapolation function to extrapolate given data for incident energies, emission angles, and emission energies. The other is effective in the case that there are no data of differential cross section. You can use nuclear reaction models to simulate nuclear reaction events only with data of total reaction cross section.

[ phits282 ] 2015/12/25
Important improvements
  • The following improvements related to EGS5 mode were implemented, and some bugs of the mode were revised.
    1. A new parameter ipegs was introduced to control PEGS5 execution before PHITS simulation.
    2. A new parameter imsegs was introduced to precisely simulate the multiple scattering of electron every time when electron goes into a new material.
    3. The limitation of the number of material when you use EGS5 was eliminated. However, PHITS calculation may crash due to insufficient memory when you define more than a few hundred materials. In addition, the maximum number of elements per one material is still limited to 20.
    4. Mass data from carbon to aluminum (6 =< Z =< 13) were revised.
  • Algorithm to consider energy straggling of charged particles was revised to reproduce the doses around Bragg peak more precisely.
  • A new parameter idelt was introduced to reduce the computational time for particle transport simulation in very large gas area. When idelt=1, deltm and deltc are divided by the density of each material.
  • Muon-nuclear interaction model was implemented. Characteristic X-ray production from muonic atoms as well as associating muon capture reaction can be also considered.
  • The function for simulating nuclear resonance florescence (NRF) was implemented. In this function, the polarization of photon can be also considered.
  • A new parameter pnimul was introduced to bias the photo-nuclear reaction cross section against photo-atomic interaction cross section.
  • A new parameter NONU was added in [parameters] section to control the neutron multiplicity.
  • We changed the default setting of the nuclear reaction model in the case that light ions are targets. When such a reaction occurs, PHITS calculates it with regarding the light ions as projectile on the basis of the inverse kinematics. For example, in the default setting, INCL is used even for heavy ion induced reactions when deuteron is set to be its target nucleus.
  • Some bugs in the muon- and photon-induced nuclear reaction models as well as JQMD-2.0 were fixed.
  • Three new functions were implemented in [source] section.
    1. Generation of neutron sources from spontaneous fission by ispfs parameter.
    2. Generation of source particles from a triangle prism.
    3. Generation of source particles with arbitrary time information.
  • The function to properly calculate the uncertainty of tally results was implemented in the case of using dump source.
  • The function to read tetrahedral geometry (a kind of polygonal geometry) was implemented. This implementaion was carried out under support of HUREL, Hanyang University, Korea.
  • The function to read user defined cross sections was implemented.
  • A new option fiss was added in [counter] section to output the information on secondary particles generated through fission reaction, particularly in each generation of sequential fissions.
  • Point estimator tally [t-point] was implemented to calculate the particle fluence at a certain point or ring.
  • A new function to calculate the particle fluence in sector prisms was implemented in [t-track] tally by introducing θ mesh in the case of mesh = r-z.
  • Contribution of each particle can be properly calculated using [t-deposit] with output = deposit option.
  • A new parameter elastic was added in [t-yield] tally to output recoil nucleus from elastic scattering.
  • Restart calculation using [t-dpa] tally became feasible.
  • A new output option was added in [t-star] tally to output star density for a reaction which induces transmutation of target nucleus.
  • The maximum number of regions that can be specified in [t-dchain] was extended up to 500. We fixed a bug in [t-dchain] to properly consider the successive lines.
  • Sum tally function became applicable to all tallies except for [t-dchain].
  • We fixed a bug in [t-heat] with mesh=r-z.
  • We fixed a bug in [t-deposit], mesh=reg, output=deposit when you use [delta-ray] section.
  • Bug in the calculation of the uncertainty of [t-yield] was fixed.
  • We revised makefile to consider the dependence of each source file. Owning to this improvement, you can use "make -j" option to speed up the compilation of PHITS.
  • Instructions how to use tetrahedral geometry (TetraGEOM), point estimator tally (tpoint), and user-defined tally (usrtally) were added in the utility folder.

[ phits276 ] 2015/03/20
Important improvements
  • Transport algorithm for photons, electrons and positions in EGS5 (Electron Gamma Shower Version 5) was incorporated..
  • Muon-nuclear interaction model based on the virtual photon production theory was implemented. Characteristic X-ray production from muonic atoms as well as associating muon capture reaction can be also considered in the new version.
  • Adjustment parameters for determing the magnitude of angular straggling for nspred = 2 were introduced.
  • Version of DCHAIN-SP included in the PHITS package was changed from DCHAIN-SP2001 to DCHAIN-SP2014.
  • A new function to combine two (or more) tally results, named “sum tally”, was implemented. At this moment, this function works only for the results obtained from [t-track] and [t-deposit]. (From ver. 2.82, this function became applicable to all tallies except for [t-dchain].)
  • The Kurotama model was revised to be capable of calculating the cross sections over 5 GeV/n.
  • The gamma de-excitation data contained in trxcrd.dat was incorporated in the source files of PHITS. Consequently, file(14) parameter is not necessary to be specified in PHITS input file even setting e-mode?1 or igamma?1.
  • High-energy photo-nuclear reaction can be treated up to 100 GeV by implementing pion-production and non-resonant photonuclear reaction mechanism in JQMD and JAM.
  • The event generator mode ver.2 was improved to precisely determine the charged particle spectra on the basis of their cross section data such as (n, p) and (n, α) contained in evaluated nuclear data library.
  • JQMD was improved to consider the relativistic effect. The algorithm for stabilizing the initial state of nucleus was also implemented.
  • Detector resolution can be considered in the event-by-event deposition energy calculation using [t-deposit] with output = deposit.
  • A geometry check function was implemented. This function works when you specify a tally for generating the two-dimensional view of your geometry. When double defined or undefined regions are detected, their regions are painted on the two-dimensional view.
  • New parameter infout was added to control output information in file(6) (D=phits.out).
  • Cone shape can be used for specifying the source locations by setting s-type=18, 19.
  • Dumpall and dump function for [t-cross], [t-time], [t-product] tallies can be used in the restart calculation.
  • We increased the total memory usage of PHITS (mdas) given in the param.inc file, and the maximum number of lattice (latmax) in a cell.
  • Algorithm for including discrete spectra calculated by DWBA (Distorted Wave Born Approximation) was implemented. In several nuclear reactions induced by protons or deuterons, discrete peaks are added to neutron and proton spectra obtained by nuclear reaction models.
  • Results in the unit of Gy can be also obtained in [t-heat] tally. We corrected a bug that NaN was detected
    in the case of void regions.
  • OpenMP version of executable file for Windows was compiled in 64-bit compatible mode in order to increase the allocatable memory size. Consequently, only single version of PHITS can be executed on Windows 32-bit machine.

[ phits264 ] 2013/11/20
Minor revisions and bug fix
  1. Bug in the connecting calculation between DCHAIN-SP and PHITS2.63 was fixed
  2. Bugs in photo-nuclear reaction model and EBITEM were fixed
[ phits263 ] 2013/10/28
Important improvements
  • Algorithm for de-excitation of nucleus after the evaporation process was improved by implementing EBITEM (ENSDF-Based Isomeric Transition and isomEr production Model). Prompt gamma spectrum can be precisely estimated, including discrete peaks. The isomer production rates can be properly estimated.
  • Quasi-deuteron disintegration, which is the dominant photo-nuclear mechanism between 25 to 140 MeV, was implemented in JQMD. Thus, PHITS2.60 can treat the photo-nuclear reaction up to 140 MeV. The evaporation process after the giant resonance of 6Li, 12C, 14N, and 16O was improved by considering the isospin of excited nucleus. Thus the alpha emission is suppressed and neutron and proton emission is enhanced from the giant resonance of these nuclei.
  • Particle transport simulation in the combination field of electro-magnetic fields became available. See [Electro Magnetic Field] section in detail.
  • The kerma factors contained in JENDL-4.0 were revised for the following nuclides. (Only [t-heat] calculation with neutron Kerma approximation is influenced by this revision): As075 Ba130 Ba132 Ba134 Ba135 Ba136 Ba137 Ba140 Br079 Br081 Cd106 Cd108 Cd110 Cd111 Cd112 Cd113 Cd114 Cd116 Ce141 Ce142 Ce143 Ce144 Cf250 Fe059 Ga069 Ga071 Hf174 Hf176 Hf177 Hf178 Hf179 Hf180 Hf181 Hf182 I_127 I_129 I_130 I_131 I_135 In113 In115 Kr078 Kr080 Kr082 Kr083 Kr084 Kr085 La138 La139 La140 Mo092 Mo094 Mo095 Mo096 Mo097 Mo098 Mo099 Mo100 Nb094 Nb095 Ni059 Pr141 Pr143 Rb085 Rb086 Rb087 Rh103 Rh105 Ru096 Ru098 Ru099 Ru100 Ru101 Ru102 Ru103 Ru104 Ru105 Ru106 Sb121 Sb123 Sb124 Sb125 Sb126 Se074 Se076 Se077 Se078 Se079 Se080 Se082 Sr084 Sr086 Sr087 Sr088 Sr089 Sr090 Tc099 Te120 Te122 Te123 Te124 Te125 Te126 Te127m Te128 Te129m Te130 Te132 Xe124 Xe126 Xe128 Xe129 Xe130 Xe131 Xe132 Xe133 Xe134 Xe135 Y_089 Y_090 Y_091 Yb168 Yb170 Yb171 Yb172 Yb173 Yb174 Yb176 Zr093 Zr095
Minor revisions and bug fix
  1. Number of cells acceptable in [t-dchain] was increased
  2. Several algorithms were optimized to reduce the computational time, especially for xyz mesh tally with istdev = 2.
  3. The references of PHITS and INCL were changed
  4. 7-digit cell ID became acceptable
  5. Maximum dmax for electron and positron was changed from 1 GeV to 10 GeV
  6. Restart calculation became available even when PHITS did not stop properly
  7. Lattice cell became acceptable in [t-dchain]
  8. Avoid the termination of PHITS when some strange error occurs in JAM
  9. New multiplier function k=-120 was added to weight the density
  10. Minor bug fix in SMM, user defined tally, range calculation, transform, electron lost particle, random number generation for MPI, delta-ray production.
  11. Nuclear data for some nuclei was revised by following the revision of JENDL-4.0.
  12. Bug in reading proton data library was fixed.
[ phits252 ] 2013/03/05
Updates related to the PHITS package
  • Windows and Mac installers as well as instruction files for the installation and execution of PHITS are prepared.
  • Two executable files of PHITS for Windows and Mac, respectively, are included in "bin" folder; one is for single computing, and the other is for memory-shared parallel computing.
  • Shell script and batch file for executing PHITS were developed. They are included in "bin" folder. In Windows PC, user can execute PHITS from Windows Explore using "sendto" command.
  • Neutron nuclear data library based on JENDL-4.0 was revised. Photo- and Electro-atomic data libraries were developed. They are included in "XS" folder.
  • Materials for PHITS tutorial are included in "lecture" folder.
  • Sample input files for various situations are included in "recommendation" folder.
  • The PHITS manual was revised. It is included in "manual" folder.
  • Instructions for using tools related PHITS were prepared. They are included in "utility" folder.
  • A test version of PHITS in combination with EGS5 was developed. Its executable files are included in "bin" folder.
  • An activation calculation program DCHAIN-SP is included in "dchain-sp" folder.
Updates related to the PHITS source code
  • A function to generate knocked-out electrons so-called delta-rays was implemented.
  • The functions "dumpall" and "dump" for [t-cross], [t-time], and [t-product] tallies became available in the MPI parallel computing.
  • The radiation damage model for calculating DPA (Displacement Per Atom) was improved using the screened Coulomb scattering.
  • A new section named [multiplier] was developed for multiplying user-defined function with the results obtained from [t-track]. Using this function, user can directly calculate the ambient dose equivalent, H*(10), using PHITS.
  • The procedure for calculating statistical uncertainties was revised. The function to restart the PHITS calculation based the tally results obtained by past PHITS simulations was implemented in order to increase the history number when the number is not enough.
  • The shared memory parallel computing using OpenMP architecture became available. For this purpose, the source code of PHITS was dramatically revised, and old Fortran compilers such as f77 and g77 cannot be used for compiling PHITS anymore.
  • The cross section data for photo-nuclear reaction was revised based on JENDL Photonuclear Data File 2004 (JENDL/PD-2004).
  • The Statistical Multi-fragmentation Model (SMM) was implemented in the statistical decay of highly-excited residual nuclei.
  • Intra-Nuclear Cascade of Li`ege (INCL) was implemented, and employed as the default model for simulating nuclear reactions induced by neutrons, protons, pions, deuterons, tritons, He-3 and alpha particles at intermediate energies.
  • KUROTAMA model, which gives reaction cross sections of nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus, was implemented.
  • Intra-Nuclear Cascade with Emission of Light Fragment (INC-ELF) was implemented.
  • A user-defined tally named [t-userdefined] was introduced in order to deduce user specific quantities from the PHITS simulation.
  • Electron, positron and photon transport algorithms were revised. In the new version, effective stopping powers of electrons and positions vary with their cut-off energies. The energies are conserved in an event induced by photon-atomic interactions such as the photo-electric effect.
  • A new tally [t-dchain] was implemented to generate input files of DCHAIN-SP, which can calculate the time dependence of activation during and after irradiations.
  • Macro bodies of Right Elliptical Cylinder (REC), Truncated Right-angle Cone (TRC), Ellipsoid (ELL), and Wedge (WED) are implemented.
[ phits230 ] 2011/08/11
We have added mdp-uni90.f, unix90.f for gfortran and fortran90.
We have introduced the contribution of Coulomb scattering of charged particles and heavy ions in [t-dpa].
We have introduced [Multiplier] section.
In this section we can define any functions numerically
which is used in [t-track] tally multiplied with the track length.

[ phits228 ] 2011/06/21
We have improved the dump functions used in 'dumpall',
[t-cross], [t-time], and [t-product] in order to use them in the MPI parallel calculations.
We have added an information of the angle of the crossing surface in dumpall.
We have fixed many bugs in read00.f, update.f, ....,
which are not serious.
(Thanks to Furuta of RIKEN.)

We added the contributions of cut-off energy of electron and positron in [t-deposit], which are neglected before.
By this, the heats counted in [t-heat] and [t-deposit] became the same.
The number of PE for MPI calculation is increased from 200 to 20000.

We have fixed a bug in the input echo for [source].
(Thanks to Numba of Japan Radioisotope Association.)

[ phits226 ] 2011/05/18
We have implemented the [Delta Ray] section, which controls the delta ray production from charged particle in materials.

[ phits224L ] 2010/12/28
The nuclear data library for neutron based on JENNDL-4.0 (FSXKIB-J40) has been included in the PHITS package.

[ phits224 ] 2010/01/12
We have fixed a bug which causes a infinite loop when we use the nuclear data for proton induced reaction.
(Thanks to Kosako of Shimizu Corporation.)

[ phits223 ] 2010/01/04
We have revised the photonuclear reaction in the GDR region and the angular distribution of photon production by electrons.

[ phits218 ] 2009/10/07
We have re-written the program for the parts of GG geometry and the processing the nuclear data in an original way.
This does not affect the calculation results at all.
We have fixed a bug in the output of [t-star] with r-z mesh.
(Thanks to Yosuke Iwamot of JAEA)

[ phits217 ] 2009/09/03
We have introduced the process of photonuclear reactions in the GDR region.
This function is not complete, but in test stage.

[ phits216 ] 2009/06/02
We have fixed a bug in the e-mode calculation, which causes wrong deposit energy distribution.
However, the affects of it is not serious.
The related source files are ggm05.f, read00.f and talls01.f.
(Thanks to Tatsuhiko Sato and Yosuke Iwamot of JAEA)

[ phits215 ] 2009/03/02
We have extended the function of e-mode for thermal region of low energy neutron transport with/without S(a,b).
By the previous version, the neutron spectrum was not described correctly in thermal region by e-mode.
correctly in thermal region by e-mode.

We have fixed a bug in the counter function, which leads wrong number of the counter
when we specify the partilce 'part' for collision event 'coll'.
The particle specification for 'coll' means the incident particle, not the produced particles in the collision.
So all particles produced by a collision have the same counter value.
(Thanks to Matsuzaki of Hokkaido Univ.)

[ phits214 ] 2008/02/15
We have fixed a bug which stops the program in e-mode.
(Thanks to Marlies Luszik-Bhadra of Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt.)

[ phits213 ] 2006/08/16
A bug came into the code when we fixed the problem;
ATIMA was stopped when the nucleus above Z=120 comes in, at phits210.
Please recalculate if you use the code after phits210 with ATIMA.
(Thanks to Iwase of GSI.)

[ phits212 ] 2006/04/21
Negative kf-code could not be read in the input file for particle specification.
This bug is fixed.
(Thanks to Watanabe of Kyusyu Univ.)

In the event generator mode, we introduced the branching ratio between the first excited state S(1)
and the ground state S(0) in the excitation function of 7Li for 10B(n,alpha)7Li reaction as S(1)/S(0)=14.9
according to the experimental data.
(Thanks to Arita of Renesas Technology Corp.)

We have fixed a bug by which nothing is scored in [t-track] with 'multiplier' and 'part=all'.

[ phits211 ] 2006/03/29
The LET values were wrong in the LET tally with ATIMA option.
This bug did not affect the transport calculation with the ATIMA option.
We have changed and put only 'main.f, range.f' for the new source.
(Thanks to Davide Mancusi of Chalmers Univ.)

[ phits210 ] 2006/03/27
We have changed the critical distance by which two different surfaces can be distinguished in GG of MCNP-based geometry
from the default value (1.e-04cm=1um) to 1.e-08cm in order to treat small regions.
(Thanks to Arita of Renesas Technology Corp.)

We have fixed the following problems;
1) ATIMA was stopped when the nucleus above Z=120 comes in.
2) GEM was stopped when unexpected nucleus comes in.
(Thanks to Inseok Baek of MSU.)

We have fixed some bugs in talls07.f.
(Thanks to Davide Mancusi of Chalmers Univ.)