McStas, a general software package for neutron ray-tracing simulations

Abstract

We present version 1.0 of the McStas freeware program package for neutron simulations. The package is based upon a special meta-language designed for Monte Carlo ray-tracing calculations and includes a library of spectrometer components and visualization tools. A detailed simulation of the Rise triple-axis spectrometer TASl shows good agreement with experiments. We invite neutron researchers to use this package and to contribute to the development of the component library.