Parameterized Shower Simulation in Lelaps: a Comparison with Geant4

The detector simulation toolkit Lelaps[1] simulates electromagnetic and hadronic showers in calorimetric detector elements of high-energy particle detectors using a parameterization based on the algorithms originally developed by Grindhammer and Peters[2] and Bock et al.[3]. The primary motivations of the present paper are to verify the implementation of the parameterization, to explore regions of energy where the parameterization is valid and to serve as a basis for further improvement of the algorithm. To this end, we compared the Lelaps simulation to a detailed simulation provided by Geant4[4]. A number of different calorimeters, both electromagnetic and hadronic, were implemented in both programs. Longitudinal and radial shower profiles and their fluctuations were obtained from Geant4 over a wide energy range and compared with those obtained from Lelaps. Generally the longitudinal shower profiles are found to be in good agreement in a large part of the energy range, with poorer results at energies below about 300 MeV. Radial profiles agree well in homogeneous detectors, but are somewhat deficient in segmented ones. These deficiencies are discussed.