Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userNuclear Emulsion Film Detectors for Proton Radiography: Design and Test of the First Prototype
108
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Proton therapy is nowadays becoming a wide spread clinical practice in cancer therapy and sophisticated treatment planning systems are routinely used to exploit at best the ballistic properties of charged particles. The information on the quality of the beams and the range of the protons is a key issue for the optimization of the treatment. For this purpose, proton radiography can be used in proton therapy to obtain direct information on the range of the protons, on the average density of the tissues for treatment planning optimization and to perform imaging with negligible dose to the patient. We propose an innovative method based on nuclear emulsion film detectors for proton radiography, a technique in which images are obtained by measuring the position and the residual range of protons passing through the patients body. Nuclear emulsion films interleaved with tissue equivalent absorbers can be fruitfully used to reconstruct proton tracks with very high precision. The first prototype of a nuclear emulsion based detector has been conceived, constructed and tested with a therapeutic proton beam at PSI. The scanning of the emulsions has been performed at LHEP in Bern, where a fully automated microscopic scanning technology has been developed for the OPERA experiment on neutrino oscillations. After track reconstruction, the first promising experimental results have been obtained by imaging a simple phantom made of PMMA with a step of 1 cm. A second phantom with five 5 x 5 mm^2 section aluminum rods located at different distances and embedded in a PMMA structure has been also imaged. Further investigations are in progress to improve the resolution and to image more sophisticated phantoms.
rate research
Read More
We propose an innovative method for proton radiography based on nuclear emulsion film detectors, a technique in which images are obtained by measuring the position and the residual range of protons passing through the patients body. For this purpose, nuclear emulsion films interleaved with tissue equivalent absorbers can be used to reconstruct proton tracks with very high accuracy. This is performed through a fully automated scanning procedure employing optical microscopy, routinely used in neutrino physics experiments. Proton radiography can be used in proton therapy to obtain direct information on the average tissue density for treatment planning optimization and to perform imaging with very low dose to the patient. The first prototype of a nuclear emulsion based detector has been conceived, constructed and tested with a therapeutic proton beam. The first promising experimental results have been obtained by imaging simple phantoms.
Precise neutrino--nucleus interaction measurements in the sub-multi GeV region are important to reduce the systematic uncertainty in future neutrino oscillation experiments. Furthermore, the excess of ${ u_e}$ interactions, as a possible interpretation of the existence of a sterile neutrino has been observed in such an energy region. The nuclear emulsion technique can measure all the final state particles with low energy threshold for a variety of targets (Fe, C, H${_2}$O, and so on). Its sub-$mu$m position resolution allows measurements of the ${ u_e}$ cross-section with good electron/gamma separation capability. We started a new experiment at J-PARC to study sub-multi GeV neutrino interactions by introducing the nuclear emulsion technique. The J-PARC T60 experiment has been implemented as a first step of such a project. Systematic neutrino event analysis with full scanning data in the nuclear emulsion detector was performed for the first time. The first neutrino event detection and its analysis is described in this paper.
Radiation therapy with protons as of today utilizes information from x-ray CT in order to estimate the proton stopping power of the traversed tissue in a patient. The conversion from x-ray attenuation to proton stopping power in tissue introduces range uncertainties of the order of 2-3% of the range, uncertainties that are contributing to an increase of the necessary planning margins added to the target volume in a patient. Imaging methods and modalities, such as Dual Energy CT and proton CT, have come into consideration in the pursuit of obtaining an as good as possible estimate of the proton stopping power. In this study, a Digital Tracking Calorimeter is benchmarked for proof-of-concept for proton CT purposes. The Digital Tracking Calorimeteris applied for reconstruction of the tracks and energies of individual high energy protons. The presented prototype forms the basis for a proton CT system using a single technology for tracking and calorimetry. This advantage simplifies the setup and reduces the cost of a proton CT system assembly, and it is a unique feature of the Digital Tracking Calorimeter. Data from the AGORFIRM beamline at KVI-CART in Groningen in the Netherlands and Monte Carlo simulation results are used to in order to develop a tracking algorithm for the estimation of the residual ranges of a high number of concurrent proton tracks. The range of the individual protons can at present be estimated with a resolution of 4%. The readout system for this prototype is able to handle an effective proton frequency of 1 MHz by using 500 concurrent proton tracks in each readout frame, which is at the high end range of present similar prototypes. A future further optimized prototype will enable a high-speed and more accurate determination of the ranges of individual protons in a therapeutic beam.
Space observatories for gravitational radiation such as LISA are equipped with dedicated on-board instrumentation capable of measuring magnetic fields with low-noise conditions at millihertz frequencies. The reason is that the core scientific payload can only operate successfully if the magnetic environment meets certain strict low-frequency requirements. With this purpose, a simplified version of the proposed magnetic measurement system for LISA has been developed for a six-unit CubeSat, which will make it possible to improve the technology readiness level (TRL) of the instrument. The special feature of the experiment is that the magnetic sensors integrated in the payload are magnetically shielded to low-frequency fluctuations by using a small cylindrical permalloy enclosure. This will allow the in-flight noise characterization of the system under the CubeSat orbit environment. Therefore, a CubeSat platform will offer the opportunity to measure the capability of the instrument and will guide the progress towards the improved magnetic measurement system for LISA. This article describes the principal characteristics and implementation of the CubeSat payload.
Proton beam therapy can potentially offer improved treatment for cancers of the head and neck and in paediatric patients. There has been a sharp uptake of proton beam therapy in recent years as improved delivery techniques and patient benefits are observed. However, treatments are currently planned using conventional x-ray CT images due to the absence of devices able to perform high quality proton computed tomography (pCT) under realistic clinical conditions. A new plastic-scintillator-based range telescope concept, named ASTRA, is proposed here as the energy tagging detector of a pCT system. Simulations conducted using Geant4 yield an expected energy resolution of 0.7% and have demonstrated the ability of ASTRA to track multiple protons simultaneously. If calorimetric information is used the energy resolution could be further improved to about 0.5%. Assuming clinical beam parameters the system is expected to be able to efficiently reconstruct at least, 10$^8$ protons/s. The performance of ASTRA has been tested by imaging phantoms to evaluate the image contrast and relative stopping power reconstruction.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
