Preface

This report focuses on the technical aspects of 4\(^{th}\) generation FLUKA  started with version 2021.2, mantained and developed by A.Fassò, A.Ferrari, P.R.Sala (J.Ranft unfortunately died in 2018).

This document is a reference guide for the users of the 4\(^{th}\) generation of the FLUKA particle transport code, so as to provide them with a tool for the correct input preparation and use of the code, a description of the basic code structure, and of the history of its evolution. In particular, this guide is intended to document the 2024 version of FLUKA, a major update which represents a fundamental evolution in FLUKA development with respect to the previous releases, from both the scientific and technical points of view. This development is one of the main tasks carried out under the FLUKA Collaboration. Notwithstanding the efforts of the authors, it is not possible to guarantee that this guide is free from error. Furthermore, since the FLUKA code is continually evolving, this guide will also evolve with time. This manual should not be used as the reference for the code. The required references are the overview of the code and new developments [Bal24] and the 2005 report [Fer05]. Additional references may be included when relevant to the version in use. In using the code, the user agrees on authorship and copyright and is bound to quote these references.

This guide is organized as follows. After the FLUKA Licence, which the user is required to read carefully, Part I contains a summary description of what FLUKA is and what its capabilities are (Introduction), a Beginner’s Guide (A FLUKA beginner’s guide), the Installation Guide (Installation), and a list of the main modules (Fortran files) of which FLUKA is composed (FLUKA modules (Fortran files)).

Part II is the real User Guide, where the user can find a detailed description of what is needed to run FLUKA: particles and materials considered in the code (Particle and material codes), the rules for building FLUKA input (General features of FLUKA input), each single FLUKA command and corresponding parameters (Description of FLUKA input options), the Geometry system (Combinatorial Geometry), the standard FLUKA output (Output), how to write the user routines (User routines), etc.

At the end of Part II, the history of FLUKA is reported, putting emphasis on the third generation of the code evolution (from 1988 to the 2019 version, the 2021 version representing the fourth generation of the code), giving more details about the code structure and all the fundamental physics models used in FLUKA.

It must be noted that early versions of the FLUKA hadronic event generator as implemented in other codes (in particular GEANT3) should be referenced as such (e.g. GEANT-FLUKA) and not as FLUKA. They have little in common with the present version and should be considered virtually obsolete. The proper reference to GEANT-FLUKA is Ref. [Fas93a].

It must be noted that after the termination in 2019 of the INFN-CERN Agreement of 2003, CERN started to distribute a so-called “FLUKA-4” code, whose legality is currently disputed by the surviving FLUKA Authors, A.Fassò, A.Ferrari, P.R. Sala, who consider that it infringes on their authorship rights as protected by the Bern convention, and by the Swiss, Italian, and European laws.

Please contact A. Ferrari, P. Sala, or A. Fassò (see email addresses below) for any comment on or criticism about this manual and/or the code.

The FLUKA Authors:

Alfredo Ferrari,

Private, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

(Alfredo.Ferrari@kit.edu)

Paola R. Sala,

Private, retired from INFN

(Paola.Sala@orange.fr)

Alberto Fassò,

retired, SLAC Stanford, USA

(Albertofasso@gmail.com)

Johannes Ranft,

Siegen University, Germany

(deceased)
The present FLUKA Contributors:

Konstantin Batkov

MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University

Giuseppe Battistoni,

INFN Milan

Ricardo dos Santos Augusto,

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Andrea Fedynitch

Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

Anna Ferrari,

HZDR Dresden

Andrea Mairani,

CNAO,HIT

Maria Cristina Morone,

Tor Vergata University, Rome, and INFN

Stefan Müller,

HZDR Dresden

Silvia Muraro,

INFN Milan

Vincenzo Patera,

Sapienza University, Rome, and INFN Frascati

Mario Santana,

SLAC
Past FLUKA Contributors:

Giulia Aricò,

Italy

Till Tobias Böhlen,

PSI

Anton Empl,

Houston University

Francesco Cerutti,

CERN

Mary Chin,

Malaysia

Andrea Fontana,

INFN Pavia

Maria Vittoria Garzelli,

Italy

Mattias Lantz,

Uppsala University

Stefan Roesler,

CERN

Francesc Salvat-Pujol,

CERN

Philippe Schoofs,

CERN

George Smirnov

Dubna, Russia

Florian Sommerer

HIT

Vasilis Vlachoudis

CERN

Contributors to earlier versions (FLUKA82–FLUKA92):

  1. Aarnio

Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

through FLUKA87

J.-H. Moehring

Leipzig University, Germany

through FLUKA92

    1. Stevenson

TIS/RP, CERN, Switzerland

through FLUKA90

    1. Zazula

Institute of Nuclear Physics, Cracow, Poland

through FLUKA90