Component Manual for the Neutron Ray-Tracing Package McStas, version 3.8.6

4.2  The Slit McStas Component

Rectangular/circular slit

Identification

Description

A simple rectangular or circular slit. You may either specify the radius (circular shape), or the rectangular bounds. No transmission around the slit is allowed.

Example: Slit(xmin=-0.01, xmax=0.01, ymin=-0.01, ymax=0.01) Slit(xwidth=0.02, yheight=0.02) Slit(radius=0.01)

The Slit will issue a warning if run as "closed"

Input parameters

Parameters in boldface are required; the others are optional.

Name

Unit

Description

Default

xmin

m

Lower x bound

UNSET

xmax

m

Upper x bound

UNSET

ymin

m

Lower y bound

UNSET

ymax

m

Upper y bound

UNSET

radius

m

Radius of slit in the z=0 plane, centered at Origin

UNSET

xwidth

m

Width of slit. Overrides xmin,xmax if they are unset.

UNSET

yheight

m

Height of slit. Overrides ymin,ymax if they are unset.

UNSET

Links

A beam defining diaphragm

The component Slit is a very simple construction. It sets up an opening at \(z=0\), and propagates the neutrons onto this plane (by the kernel call PROP_Z0). Neutrons within the slit opening are unaffected, while all other neutrons are discarded by the kernel call ABSORB.

By using Slit, some neutrons contributing to the background in a real experiment will be neglected. These are the ones that scatter off the inner side of the slit, penetrates the slit material, or clear the outer edges of the slit.

The input parameters of Slit are the four coordinates, \((x_\textrm {min}, x_\textrm {max}, y_\textrm {min}, y_\textrm {max})\) defining the opening of the rectangle, or the radius \(r\) of a circular opening, depending on which parameters are specified.

The slit component can also be used to discard insignificant (i.e. very low weight) neutron rays, that in some simulations may be very abundant and therefore time consuming. If the optional parameter \(p_\textrm {cut}\) is set, all neutron rays with \(p<p_\textrm {cut}\) are ABSORB’ed. This use is recommended in connection with Virtual_output.