GEANT4 physics evaluation with testbeam data of the ATLAS hadronic end-cap calorimeter

We evaluate the validity of the GEANT4 electromagnetic and hadronic physics models by comparing experimental data from beam tests of modules of the ATLAS hadronic end-cap calorimeter with GEANT4-based simulations. Two physics lists (LHEP and QGSP) for the simulation of hadronic showers are evaluated. Calorimeter performance parameters like the energy resolution and shapes of showers are studied both for electrons and charged pions. Furthermore, throughout the paper we compare GEANT4 and the corresponding predictions of GEANT3 used with the G-CALOR code for hadronic shower development.