Problem 620

Summary: Infinite tracking loop using Sphere/Orb solids
Product: Geant4 Reporter: mkippen
Component: geometry/solidsAssignee: Vladimir.Grichine
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: critical CC: Gabriele.Cosmo, John.Apostolakis
Priority: P1    
Version: 6.1   
Hardware: PC   
OS: Linux   
URL: http://home.lanl.gov/mkippen/g4bugs/testbug.tgz

Description mkippen 2004-05-03 10:48:57 CEST
Problem:  infinite tracking loop encountered when tracking (~0.1 - 10 MeV) electrons through a simple
geometry.  Electrons become trapped at the boundary between two NESTED volumes.

Geometry:  Master = G4Box (Vacuum)
                     Daughter = G4Orb (Aluminum)
                        Daughter1 = G4Orb (Tantalum)
                           Daughter2 = G4Orb (Vacuum)
                              Daughter3 = G4Tubs (Silicon)

Physics:  Standard EM

All volumes are nested so that there are no two volumes on the same Tree level.  Particles become
trapped at the boundary of the outermost sphere.  The problem occurs rarely (1 out of 10^7 incident
electrons) and is independent of the incident electron energy.  The problem also occurs replacing
G4Orb with G4Sphere, and replacing G4Box with G4Orb or G4Sphere.

A simple example code showing the problem is available at the attached web site (compressed tar file).
Comment 1 John Apostolakis 2004-06-21 12:12:59 CEST
Thank you for this error report and the very clear and most useful test case.

I have identifed now the problem in the geometry that leads to this error.

We now also have a few line program that reproduces the problem that leads to
this infinite loop.  We will be investigating this in the coming week.

In addition the Navigator is revised in Geant4 6.2. It has been modified to
attempt to recover from getting stuck as in this case or else abandon the
relevant event after warning the user.
Comment 2 Vladimir.Grichine 2004-11-07 01:51:59 CET
Fix introduced in geom-csg-V06-02-00