Monte Carlo simulations and recommendations on geometry optimization for image reconstruction using a simple proton radiography setup
摘要
Proton radiography is an imaging method which could facilitate treatment planning for proton therapy by evaluation of mean stopping power of protons as they traverse the tissue under imaging. Stopping powers of various materials through which the protons pass can be probed approximately, knowing the energy deposited in the tissue as well as the proton scattering angle as it passes through position-sensitive detectors that surround the tissue under imaging. It is suggested that the measurement uncertainty of relative proton stopping powers should be lowered to less than 1% to make more accurate proton radiographs than the currently available images obtained through X-ray Computed Tomography (CT). The uncertainty of the reconstructed stopping powers has to do among others with the error in proton track reconstruction which is reflected roughly by the measurement uncertainty of scattering angles, provided that the proton primary energy is high enough to allow it pace the whole geometry only within its Bragg curve plateau. In this study, by simulating a simple proton radiography setup using Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit, the effect of constraining the scattering angle of protons on the enhancement of radiographs is investigated—as far as contrasting different shapes is concerned. We placed a phantom consisting of different materials of various shapes between two sheets of position sensitive detectors followed by a calorimeter for stopping the protons and irradiated the geometry with 150, 200, and 250 MeV protons. Hence, we laid out a preliminary study of the balance between efficiency and quality of image reconstruction.