A GEANT4 Study of a Gamma-ray Collimation Array

Abstract

Proton beam therapy uses high-energy protons to destroy cancer cells which are still uncertain about where in the body they hit. A possible way to answer this question is to detect the gamma rays produced during the irradiation and determine where in the body they are produced. This work investigates the use of collimators to determine where the proton interactions occur. GEANT4 is used to simulate the gamma production of a source interacting with a collimator. Each event simulates a number of gammas obtained as a function of the position along the detector. Repeating for different collimator configurations can thus help determine the best characteristics of a detector device.

GEANT4 Study of Proton–Body Interactions

“…If information about the location of the target being hit by the proton beam were available, one could then fine-tune the beam energy during the irradiation for a better focus. As explained in [5,6], it is conceivable to use the gamma rays produced during the proton-target interaction to determine the location of the proton-tissue interaction and, as an extension, it may also be possible to determine the type of target being hit by looking at the characteristics of the gamma rays being produced. This is the ultimate goal of this study, namely, to determine the type of target being irradiated by inspecting the gamma rays produced.…”