Design of a new physics database for FLUKA’s next generation

\nThe physics database used by FLUKA dates back more than thirty years. It relies on legacy data structures that, although efficient, are increasingly complicated to maintain. The inception of a new generation of FLUKA code represents a great opportunity to modernize this database. This major upgrade implements a modularization of the data structures and a simplification of the formats. It comes along with the development of auxiliary scripts permitting extensive data testing and regular updating. Interfaces of the new database with both the existing generation of FLUKA as well as the new one are described, including the hierarchical object-oriented paradigm chosen to access data elements in the modernized codebase. Finally, perspectives are given to the extension of this work in terms of contents and features.\n