CHEP 2009

Experimental validation of the Geant4 ion-ion models for carbon beams interaction at the hadron-therapy energy range (0 - 400 AMeV)

24 Mar 2009, 08:00

1h

Prague

Board: Tuesday 019

poster Event Processing Poster session

Speaker

Dr Pablo Cirrone (INFN-LNS)

Description

Geant4 is a Monte Carlo toolkit describing transport and interaction of particles with matter. Geant4 covers all particles and materials, and its geometry description allows for complex geometries. Initially focused on high energy applications, the use of Geant4 is growing also in different like radioprotection, dosimetry, space radiation and external radiotherapy with proton and carbon beams. External radiotherapy using ion beams presents many advantages, both in terms of dose distributions and in biological efficiencies, compared to either conventional electron or photon beams as well as compared to the proton therapy. Nevertheless, an efficient and proper use of ions for patient irradiation requires a very accurate understanding of the complex processes governing interactions of ions with matter for both electromagnetic and hadronic interactions. In particular, the accurate knowledge of secondary neutral and charged particles production is of fundamental importance as it is strictly related to the biological dose released in tissues. Dose released in an ion-therapy treatment cannot be, in fact, correctly evaluated without these information. Is it moreover demonstrated that a lack exists for both experimental data (in terms of accurate double differential production cross sections) and validated nucleus-nucleus models in the particles and energy ranges typical of hadron-therapy applications: light incident ions (up to Carbon) at energies between 0 and 400 AMeV. In this work we will report and discuss a set of specific validations we performed to the test some of the nucleus-nucleus models actually provided inside Geant4. Double differential production cross sections of neutron and charged particles from 12C beams on different thin targets, obtained using alternative Geant4 models, will be compared to existing published data and to new data acquired by our group in a dedicated experiment performed at INFN/LNS.