The Implementation of MuDirac in Geant4: A Preliminary Approach to the Improvement of the Simulation of the Muonic Atom Cascade Process

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

thanks a lot for the very nice work. The paper is clear and well written: it demonstrates the possible extension of Geant4 for muonic-atom spectroscopy, by feeding an external database based on the MuDirac code. Despite the simulations are not able yet to reproduce the measured intensity, the agreement (forcibly) achieved for the line positions is interesting "per se" and can be of general interest for other users. Furthermore, the presence of original validation experimental data (Fig. 4) is an added value for the paper.

I have a few minor comments, most of which are cosmetic.

- l. 37: "was developed". In my knowlege, Geant4 is still being developed and regularly released. So "is developed" would be more appropriate?

- l. 40: the "For instance" which opens the sentence is very misleading to me. Arby is the core business of this work, not just an example. I would remove "For example" and maybe start a new paragraph.

- l. 41: INFN: the acronym (which is used several time) may not be generally known to readers.

- l. 41ff: Not clear here what Arby exactly is: is it purely a wrapper of Geant4 (e.g. used to run Geant4 in a user-friendly way), or does it add original (physics) functionalities or capabilities with respect to the bare Geant4? Please extend the introduction a little bit, in this sense.

-l. 73: big deviation -> large deviation

- l. 82: "a few years ago" reads too vague to me. It would be good to add a statement like "since version x.y of Geant4", or at least a specific date

- Fig. 1: it does not add anything special to the paper. I would personally drop it

- l. 108: "than the corresponding K_alpha". Is this the line at 1491 keV? I would add it, for clarity, e.g. "than the corresponding K_alpha at xxxx keV"

- l. 164: The create -> To create

- it is not clear to me if the integration of MuDirac is with Geant4 (i.e. at the level of some G4... class) or with Arby. In other words: would it be possible to port the development to the pure Geant4, without having to pass through Arby? This should be mentioned explicitly in the text, as it makes a large difference for external users.

Thanks

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for reading the work and the comments. In the attachments a word file with the reply to the comments. I've also highlighted the modified parts on the manuscript.

Thank you again,

Matteo

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is a very useful report for muonic X-ray research. some recommendations:

1. The term of Arby, Arby_Mux and Arby_MuDirac should be defined  at the beginning for reader to understand clearly. 

2.  In Fig.4, the peak of X-ray by simulation were the same with measurement, but the height of different peaks were not good agree with the measurement. PLS say something about it.

3. Some peaks were different between simulation by Arby_MuDirac and measurement, such as 155keV, 230keV, 420keV et al. PLS give some words.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for the comments.

Attached are the replies.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf