[Neutron] The official McStas 2.1 release is finally out!

[Peter Kjær Willendrup]

Hello all,


The McStas team is finally ready with McStas 2.1 - packages are released and ready for download via http://downloads.mcstas.org/mcstas-2.1 !

A list of  selected, important highligts from the release are listed below the email siganture. For the full list of changes, please consult the CHANGES document at http://www.mcstas.org/CHANGES_McStas.


The McStas team wish you all the best and happy simulating!


Peter Willendrup


Peter Kjær Willendrup
Senior Research Engineer, Special Advisor

DTU Physics



Technical University of Denmark



[cid:image002.gif at 01CCCAF1.5E6331F0]





Department of Physics
Fysikvej

Building 307

DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby

Direct +45 2125 4612

Mobil +45 2125 4612
Fax +45 4593 2399


pkwi at fysik.dtu.dk<mailto:pkwi at fysik.dtu.dk>


____________________________________
Selected release highlights:

• McStas 2.1 is the second release in the 2.x series and fixes various issues with McStas 2.0, plus provide important new developments.
• IMPORTANT: Please ensure to use our "migration scripts" for McStas 2.0 and 1.12c if you want these to co-exist with 2.1. Also, please read the platform-specific notes!
• General:
• Via NeXus libraries and a new --format=Mantid setting for the mcdisplay tool, we are now able to generate NeXus/HDF files that can be read and treated by Mantid! Mcdisplay generates a Mantid IDF description for embedding in the NeXus file, including the usual McStas instrument geometry. Please read the specific guide for this method, documented in the McStas manual, Chapter 6.
• Use of STATE_PARAMETERS and POLARIZATION parameters is no longer supported! If you have home-grown components using these, you will get this type of error with McStas 2.1:
      Translating instrument definition 'BNL_H8.instr' into C ...
      mcstas -t -o BNL_H8.c BNL_H8.instr
      Compiling simulation BNL_H8.instr
      Arm.comp is using STATE PARAMETERS
              mcstas-2.1 does NOT support this keyword. Please remove line 36
      mcstas-2.1: 1 Errors encountered during parse of BNL_H8.instr.
      ** Error exit **
• As the error message suggests, this can be fixed by simply removing/commenting out the STATE and POLARISATION parameter lines in the top of the component, i.e.:
    /* STATE PARAMETERS (x,y,z,vx,vy,vz,t,s1,s2,p) */
    /* POLARISATION PARAMETERS (sx,sy,sz) */
    • In case of "negative time" propagation we no longer ABSORB these neutrons but rather restore the incoming neutron state, leaving it untouched for the following components. This avoids various types of shadowing effects, e.g. when placing parallel monitors that are not in a GROUP. This is furhter in preparation for the forthcoming ASSEMBLY keyword which will work roughly like an "iterative group" that loops on the ASSEMBLY of components until no furhter scattering is achieved, but always scatters first on the component which is closest (in time) to the neutron.
• "Scatter logging": With this release we provide this special ensemble of instrument examples
• Test_Scatter_log_losses.instr
• Test_Scatter_log_mvalues.instr
• Test_Scatter_log_ssw_mcnp.instr that together with the (misc cathegory) components
• Scatter_log_iterator.comp
• Scatter_log_iterator_stop.comp
• Scatter_logger.comp
• Scatter_logger_stop.comp
• provide a powerful post-processing mechanism, mainly for guide systems - that for instance can be used to study the non-propagated, i.e. absorbed neutron flux along the guide. For more information, a paper by Esben Klinkby et. al. will be available in one of the next issues of Journal of Physics: Conference Series, proceedings of the NOP&D 2013 meeting in Ismaning. Slides from Esbens talk are available here:http://orbit.dtu.dk/files/57025387/prod11375088187360.NO_P_v8.pdf<http://orbit.dtu.dk/files/57025387/prod11375088187360.NO_P_v8.pdf>
• Another important change is an optimization of the Single_crystal component that results in very large speedups, especially for large unit cells with many reflections. A speedup of more than a factor of 500 has been observed with the Perdeuterated pyrophosphatase system, for which a very large reflection list (.lau format) is provided.
• The release also contains the latest revision of the ESS_moderator component, including updated "pancake" source brilliance calculated by the ESS neutronics group and parametrized for McStas by Troels Schönfeldt, DTU Nutech.
We have also received a nice, long list of contributions and have also developed and improved both components, instruments and core package functionalty. For the full list of changes, please consult the CHANGES document.
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