Particle Physics Transport Code for Simulation of Biological Shielding

A detailed simulation of the propagation of particles (including photons, electrons, nucleons, mesons and so forth) through matter is the key component of any software which aims to evaluate the effectiveness of shielding for materials and systems. The same core software is also central to the development of high energy and nuclear physics experiments; whilethe aim in this case is generally analysis of the performance of particle detectors, the samephysical effects must be simulated, and in considerable detail. Over the last few decades, the high energy physics community has devoted an enormous amount of effort to the development of software packages to simulate the interaction of radiation with matter. We propose to evaluate the most current and detailed of these packages to ascertain to what extent it can be adapted and specialized for evaluation of biological shielding.