McXtrace
2nd project meeting, 2/2-10, KU-Life
Minutes, KL, draft 5/2-10
Present:
Søren Kynde (SK), Jana Baltser (JB), Andrea Prodi (AP), Peter K. Willendrup (PKW), Erik Knudsen (EK), Søren Schmidt (SS), Kell Mortensen (KM), Martin Meedom Nielsen (MMN), Robert Feidenhans'l (RF), Henning Friis Poulsen (HFP), Lise Arleth (LA), Karsten Dan Joensen (KDJ) (only last part of meeting), Jens Wenzel Andreasen (JWA), Kim Lefmann (KL).
Excused:
Claudio Ferrero
Administrative (KL):
l MMN has earlier requested to be released from his promise about co-funding from CMM to McXtrace. This could be difficult for McXtrace to incorporate into the project. Hence, MMN will keep the original co-funding as planned.
Presentations of new project members (KL):
Jens Wenzel Andreasen from Risø-DTU has joined the McXtrace . JWA is responsible for the Risø-DTU X-ray lab.
Still one Ph.D. Position at KU-Life is waiting to be filled.
Status of McXtrace, ver. 0.1 (EK):
We have met our first milestone with the release of the development version of McXtrace. The code is separated from the McStas code base, but still have overlapping functionalities. The two codes are thus developed concurrently, giving maximum synergy.
The physical properties which the rays/photons in McXtrace carry are (position x 3, k-vector x 3, polarization x 3, Mcweight x 1, phase x 1).
McXtrace 0.1 is in reality a release of the system core only, running on Mac and Linux. Very few components exist, all simple models for illustration and test purposes:
l Source (simple Gaussian)
l Arm (the empty component, defines a coordinate system)
l Slit (without edge scattering)
l Beam monitors (PSD, lambda-sensitive, or divergence-sensitive)
AP mentioned that we should have a way of interacting with sample scattering. This was agreed by the other partners, who have interest in this (SS, SK).
AP suggested a non-random source for drawing diagrams for geometrical optics. EK will look into that.
RF and MMN suggested that time is explicitly entered into the simulations. This was agreed upon. EK will do that.
Collaborations
MAXLAB
Yngve Cerenius has expressed interest in the simulation of a SAXS beamline for MAX-4. There could be many other possibilities for using McXtrace in collaboration with the MAXLAB staff. It is still too early to formalize this.
DESY
Ivan Vartanians is working on simulations of partially coherent beams. He could be a potential partner in the future, and we should arrange a meeting with him.
ESRF
The agreement with ESRF is about to be signed. Overall, it is agreed that AP will work at ESRF for 12 months, staying in portions of a few months or longer. In addition, we will collaborate to develop McXtrace on the basis of SHADOW/XOP, so that the two systems will effectively converge.
We still need to agree on the details about the code collaboration with Claudio Ferrero and Manuel Sanchez del Rio. Some steps along this way could be to:
· Create a link between McXtrace and the XOP databases.
· Move the SHADOW functionality into McXtrace, component by component.
· Create a link between the SHADOW/VUI user interface and the McXtrace system.
· Make a concurrent test of McXtrace and SHADOW to ensure that results are identical. One example could be an ID-09 simulation
In the coming few months it still makes sense to develop very simple McXtrace code pieces for optical elements in order for us to gain understanding of the McXtrace core and X-ray optics in general. In addition, this will enable us to debug advanced imported SHADOW/XOP functionality stepwise.
Priorities in McXtrace developments
The McXtrace kernel seems in a good shape. EK takes care of the maintenance:
· Addition of time
· Porting to Windows platform
In the present phase, i.e. Before the input from SHADOW, we will create the following simple components:
· Laboratory source (JB and AP)
· Synchrotron sources (EK)
· Refractive lens (JB and AP)
· Ideal crystal monochromator (JB and AP)
· Curved ideal mirror (JB and AP)
· Slit with edge scattering and Fresnel diffraction (JB and AP; later)
· Real detectors, e.g. Pilatus (EK)
In addition, we will create sample components:
· SAXS sample (SK)
· Powder sample, reused from McStas (EK)
We will test this with a few simulations:
· Als-Nielsen poor-mans instrument (JB)
· JJ-Xray Systems SAXS set-up (to be defined)
Long-term plans:
· Simulate ID-09, ID-11, MAX-IV SAXS
· Simulate mechanical instibilities
· Simulate coherence
Presentations: (slides from earlier meeting to be found at www.mcxtrace.org)
l No slide presentations this time
Next Meetings (accumulated):
- Meeting with ESRF, to be scheduled
Administrative ToDo (accumulated):
l (KL) Arrange a meeting with ESRF staff
l (KM and LA) Announce the last Ph.D. Position in the project
l (KL) Discuss with Research Council (SFR) the collaboration with the UNIQ centre.
l (KL) Call next McXtrace meeting via Doodle.com
l (EK) Investigate how we can make conference calls work(!)