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| 2 | ========================================================= |
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| 3 | Geant4 - Hadrontherapy example |
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| 4 | ========================================================= |
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| 5 | |
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| 6 | README file |
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| 7 | ---------------------- |
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| 8 | |
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| 9 | AUTHORS |
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| 10 | |
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| 11 | G.A.P. CIRRONE(a *), G.CUTTONE(a), F. DI ROSA(a), G.RUSSO(a) |
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| 12 | a. Laboratori Nazionali del Sud - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare |
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| 13 | 95123 Catania, Italy |
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| 14 | * e-mail:cirrone@lns.infn.it |
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| 15 | |
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| 16 | M.G. PIA(b) |
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| 17 | b. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Genova Via Dodecaneso, 33 |
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| 18 | 16146, Genova, Italy |
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| 19 | |
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| 20 | A. LECHNER (c) |
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| 21 | c. CERN, Switzerland |
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| 22 | |
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| 23 | More informations on the Hadrontherapy example can be found in the |
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| 24 | Hadrontherapy Documentation available at http://www.ge.infn.it/geant4/examples/ |
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| 25 | |
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| 26 | Alternatevely send an e-mail to cirrone@lns.infn.it. |
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| 27 | |
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| 28 | |
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| 29 | ---->0. INTRODUCTION. |
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| 30 | |
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| 31 | The hadrontherapy example simulates a hadron therapy beam line. |
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| 32 | In particular the example models the specific proton therapy beam line |
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| 33 | installed at Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (INFN) in Catania, Sicily (Italy). |
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| 34 | For more information on the proton therapy center of Catania |
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| 35 | or/and proton/hadron therapy in general, please visit the |
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| 36 | pages: |
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| 37 | http://www.lns.infn.it/catanaweb/catana/ |
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| 38 | |
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| 39 | ---->1. GEOMETRY SET-UP. |
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| 40 | |
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| 41 | The elements simulated are: |
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| 42 | |
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| 43 | 1. A scattering system, to spread geometrically the beam; |
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| 44 | |
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| 45 | 2. A system of collimators, to avoid the scattering radiation; |
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| 46 | |
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| 47 | 3. A modulation system that spreads the beam in energy and |
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| 48 | produces the so-called spread out bragg peak; |
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| 49 | It is constituted by a rotating wheel of different thichnesses. |
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| 50 | The wheel rotates around is axis (parallel to the proton |
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| 51 | beam axis) and its movement can be obtained by means of a |
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| 52 | messenger between runs. |
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| 53 | |
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| 54 | 4. A set of monitor chambers (special transmission ionisation |
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| 55 | chambers used to control hadron flux during the irradiation); |
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| 56 | |
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| 57 | 5. A "nozzle" and a final collimator defining the final shape |
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| 58 | of the beam before reaching the patient. |
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| 59 | |
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| 60 | 6. A water phantom: it is a box of water where the energy deposit is |
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| 61 | calculated. |
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| 62 | The use of the water phantom is required by the international protocol |
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| 63 | on the measure of dose in the case of proton and ion beams (IAEA 398, 2000). |
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| 64 | |
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| 65 | ---->2. EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP. |
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| 66 | |
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| 67 | The application simulates the proton therapy beam line |
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| 68 | installed at Laboratori Nazionali del Sud. |
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| 69 | The default beam line is a typical treatment line composed by several elements all |
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| 70 | devoted to create the so-called "terapeutical beam", i.e. a beam ideal |
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| 71 | for a radiotherapeutic treatment. |
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| 72 | |
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| 73 | The main elements are: |
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| 74 | ** The COLLIMATORS: placed along the beam line to collimate the beam; |
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| 75 | |
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| 76 | ** The RANGE SHIFTERS: to decrease the energy of the primary proton beam |
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| 77 | to a specific value; |
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| 78 | |
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| 79 | ** The MODULATOR WHEEL: to modulate the energy of the primary and monoenergetic |
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| 80 | beam in to a wide spectrum. The energy modulation is necessary to |
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| 81 | homogeneusly irradiate a tumour volume that can extends in depth |
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| 82 | up to 20 mm; |
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| 83 | |
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| 84 | ** The MONITOR CHAMBERS: very thin ionisation chamber that permit the |
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| 85 | dose monitoring during the patient irradiation; |
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| 86 | |
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| 87 | ** The PATIENT COLLIMATOR: a brass, tumour-shaped collimator able to |
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| 88 | confine the proton irradiation field in order to irradiate just the tumour mass |
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| 89 | in the trasverse direction; |
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| 90 | |
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| 91 | The user has the possibility to vary, via messenger, almost all the geometrical |
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| 92 | characteristics of the beam line elements (i.e. their position along the beam line, |
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| 93 | their thickness, etc.). More details on the available user messengers can be |
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| 94 | found in the Hadronterapy Documentation (http://www.ge.infn.it/geant4/examples/). |
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| 95 | |
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| 96 | At the end of the beam line, a typical water phantom is reproduced. |
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| 97 | A user-defined region of the phantom is divided (via the ROGeomtry class) in |
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| 98 | cubic and identical voxels. The voxels size can be varied. At the end of the simulation |
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| 99 | the energy deposited by primary protons, and secondaries in each voxel |
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| 100 | is collected. This information is available as an .hbk file (if the |
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| 101 | G4ANALYSIS_USE variable is defined). |
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| 102 | |
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| 103 | The default sizes of the active voxelized region are 40x40x40 mm corresponding |
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| 104 | to a matric of 80x80x80 cubic voxels each with a lateral dimension of 0.5 mm. |
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| 105 | |
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| 106 | ---->3. SET-UP |
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| 107 | |
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| 108 | - a standard Geant4 example GNUmakefile is provided |
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| 109 | |
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| 110 | setup with: |
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| 111 | compiler = gcc-3.2.3 |
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| 112 | G4SYSTEM = linux-g++ |
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| 113 | |
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| 114 | The following section reports the necessary environment variables |
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| 115 | necessary for the run of Hadrontherapy. |
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| 116 | |
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| 117 | ---->3.1 ENVIROMENT VARIABLES |
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| 118 | |
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| 119 | - G4SYSTEM = Linux-g++ |
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| 120 | |
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| 121 | - G4INSTALL points to the installation directory of GEANT4; |
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| 122 | |
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| 123 | - G4LIB point to the compiled libraries of GEANT4; |
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| 124 | |
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| 125 | - G4WORKDIR points to the work directory; |
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| 126 | |
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| 127 | - CLHEP_BASE_DIR points to the installation directory of CHLEP; |
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| 128 | |
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| 129 | - G4LEVELGAMMADATA points to the photoevaporation library; |
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| 130 | |
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| 131 | - NeutronHPCrossSections points to the neutron data files; |
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| 132 | |
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| 133 | - G4RADIOACTIVEDATA points to the libraries for radio-active decay |
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| 134 | hadronic processes; |
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| 135 | |
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| 136 | - G4LEDATA points to the low energy electromagnetic libraries |
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| 137 | |
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| 138 | - LD_LIBRARY_PATH = $CLHEP_BASE_DIR/lib |
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| 139 | |
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| 140 | ---->3.2 VISUALISATION |
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| 141 | |
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| 142 | The user can visualise the experimental set-up with OpenGL, DAWN and vrml |
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| 143 | |
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| 144 | ---->4. HOW TO RUN THE EXAMPLE |
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| 145 | |
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| 146 | In interactive mode: |
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| 147 | > $G4WORDIR/bin/Linux-g++/Hadrontherapy |
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| 148 | The defaultMacro.mac is executed |
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| 149 | |
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| 150 | The primary particle beam parameter are: |
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| 151 | Radiation: proton beam; |
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| 152 | Energy distribution: gaussian; |
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| 153 | Mean energy: 63.4 MeV; |
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| 154 | Energy spread: 300 keV; |
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| 155 | Beam spot size: 1 mm; |
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| 156 | Beam angular spread: 0.057 deg; |
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| 157 | |
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| 158 | The modulator wheel can be rotated via the messenger: |
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| 159 | |
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| 160 | Idle>/modulator/angle/xx deg |
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| 161 | |
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| 162 | To produce a Spread Out Bragg Peak using the modulator a macro |
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| 163 | (modulatorMacro.mac) is provided. With this macro the modulator is |
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| 164 | rotated of 360 degree at 1 deg steps. In each run 1000 protons are |
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| 165 | generated as primary particles. Obviously a bigger resolution can be obtained |
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| 166 | with smaller angles or increasing the protons number in each run. |
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| 167 | |
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| 168 | Modulator wheel can be omitted setting its material air. |
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| 169 | |
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| 170 | run $G4WORKDIR/bin/Linux-g++/Hadrontherapy visualisationMacro.mac |
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| 171 | to visualise the experimental set-up with OpenGL |
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| 172 | |
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| 173 | ---->5. PHYSICS |
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| 174 | |
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| 175 | Both electromagnetic and hadronic physic processes are activated for |
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| 176 | the particles of the experimental set-up. |
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| 177 | Different physics models can be activated by the user interactively. |
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| 178 | |
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| 179 | Examples of activation are provided in the macro files starting |
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| 180 | with the string "physics": |
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| 181 | |
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| 182 | All possible physics options are summarized in the file |
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| 183 | physicsAllOptions.mac. |
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| 184 | |
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| 185 | Different options concerning electromagnetic interactions of protons |
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| 186 | and neutrons can be tested with the files: |
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| 187 | physicsElectromagneticICRU49.mac |
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| 188 | physicsElectromagneticZiegler77.mac |
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| 189 | physicsElectromagneticZiegler85.mac |
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| 190 | |
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| 191 | Different options concerning hadronic interactions of protons and |
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| 192 | neutrons can be tested with the files: |
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| 193 | physicsHadronicBertini.mac |
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| 194 | physicsHadronicBinary.mac |
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| 195 | physicsHadronicLEP.mac |
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| 196 | physicsHadronicPrecompound.mac |
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| 197 | |
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| 198 | NOTE: Apart from the different models for protons and neutrons, a user |
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| 199 | can also select among several interaction models for particles like |
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| 200 | electrons or photons. All possible options are listed in the file |
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| 201 | physicsAllOptions.mac. |
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| 202 | |
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| 203 | ---->6. SIMULATION OUTPUT |
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| 204 | |
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| 205 | The output is an .hbk file (hadrontherapy.hbk) produced |
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| 206 | if the variable G4ANALYSIS_USE is set to 1 and the analysis tool (AIDA |
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| 207 | interface) correctly installed. |
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| 208 | The file contains an histogram and an n-tuple. |
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| 209 | The histogram contains the Bragg curve: energy deposited |
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| 210 | by the proton beam (in MeV) versus the depth in water (in mm). |
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| 211 | The n-tuple contains the total 3D energy deposit in the phantom; the information |
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| 212 | is energy deposit in each voxel with respect to the position of the voxel. |
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| 213 | |
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| 214 | Setup for analysis: AIDA 3.2.1 |
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| 215 | |
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| 216 | Users can download the analysis tools from: |
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| 217 | http://aida.freehep.org/ |
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| 218 | |
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| 219 | Note that the same information can be stored in any different format. |
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| 220 | Please contact cirrone@lns.infn.it if you want store the information in |
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| 221 | a different format. |
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| 222 | |
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| 223 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 224 | |
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| 225 | for comments, advices, doubts and questions please contact: |
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| 226 | cirrone@lns.infn.it, giorgiorusso@lns.infn.it |
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| 227 | |
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| 228 | last modified: A. Lechner, 16/11/2007 |
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| 229 | |
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