Component manual to the neutron ray-tracing package McStas, version 1.10

The software package McStas is a tool for carrying out Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulations of neutron scattering instruments with high complexity and precision. The simulations can compute most aspects of the performance of instruments and samples and can thus be used to optimize the use of existing equipment, design new instrumentation, and carry out full virtual experiments.

McStas is based on a unique design where an automatic compilation process translates high-level textual instrument descriptions into efficient ANSI-C code. This design makes it simple to set up typical simulations and also gives essentially unlimited freedom to handle more unusual cases. This report constitutes the component manual for McStas, and, together with the manual for the McStas system, it contains full documentation of all aspects of the program.

It covers a description of all official components of the McStas package with some theoretical background. Selected test instruments and representative McStas simulations performed with these instruments are described in the User Manual.