Applications of the Monte Carlo method in nuclear physics using the GEANT4 toolkit

The capabilities of the personal computers allow the application of Monte Carlo methods to simulate very complex problems that involve the transport of particles through matter. Among the several codes commonly employed in nuclear physics problems, the GEANT4 has received great attention in the last years, mainly due to its flexibility and possibility to be improved by the users. Differently from other Monte Carlo codes, GEANT4 is a toolkit written in object oriented language (C++) that includes the mathematical engine of several physical processes, which are suitable to be employed in the transport of practically all types of particles and heavy ions. GEANT4 has also several tools to define materials, geometry, sources of radiation, beams of particles, electromagnetic fields, and graphical visualization of the experimental setup. After a brief description of the GEANT4 toolkit, this presentation reports investigations carried out by our group that involve simulations in the areas of dosimetry, nuclear instrumentation and medical physics. The physical processes available for photons, electrons, positrons and heavy ions were used in these simulations.