What is EGS? EGS stands for Electron Gamma Shower. The EGS system of computer codes is a general purpose package for the Monte Carlo simulation of the coupled transport of ionizing electrons and photons with energies from a few keV up to several TeV. Simulations can be performed in arbitrarily complex physical geometries.

• The radiation transport of electrons (+ or -) or photons can be simulated in practically any element, compound, or mixture.
• Both photons and charged particles are transported in random rather than discrete steps.
• The dynamic range of charged particle kinetic energies goes from a few tens of keV up to a few thousand GeV. Conceivably the upper limit can be extended higher, but the validity of the physics remains to be checked.
• The dynamic range of photon energies lies between 1 keV and several thousand GeV (see above statement).
• The physical processes modeled include: bremsstrahlung production (excluding the Elwert correction at low energies), positron annihilation in flight and at rest, Molierer multiple scatterng with the reduced angle sampled from a continuous distribution, Moller and Bhabba scattering, pair production, Compton scattering, coherent (Rayleigh) scattering, and the photoelectric effect.

The above text has, for the most part, been shamelessly excerpted from The EGS4 Code System, by W.R. Nelson, H. Hirayama, and D.W.O. Rogers, SLAC-265 (1985).

FAQ answer provided by Rob Stewart

   
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last updated 2006-01-30