The simulation for the ATLAS experiment. Present status and outlook

The simulation program for the ATLAS experiment is presently operational in a full OO environment. This important physics application has been successfully integrated into ATLAS's common analysis framework, ATHENA. In the last year, following a well stated strategy of transition from a GEANT3 to a GEANT4-based simulation, a careful validation programme confirmed the reliability, performance and robustness of this new tool, as well as its consistency with the results of previous simulation. Generation, simulation and digitization steps on different sets of full physics events we retested for performance. The same software used to simulate the full the ATLAS detector is also used with testbeam configurations. Comparisons to real data in the testbeam validate both the detector description and the physics processes within each subcomponent. In this paper we present the current status of ATLAS GEANT4 simulation, describe the functionality tests performed during its validation phase, and the experience with distributed production during a recent ATLAS data challenge.