Eur. Phys. J. A (2020) 56: 153
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-020-00152-6

Regular Article – Experimental Physics

First comparison of GEANT4 hadrontherapy physics model with experimental data for a NUMEN project reaction case

¹ Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
² Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, IPEN/CNEN, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
³ Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
⁴ Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS), Catania, Italy
⁵ Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
⁶ Departamento de Aceleradores, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Mexico City, Mexico
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy
⁸ Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino, Turin, Italy
⁹ DISAT, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
¹⁰ LPC Caen, Normandie Université, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CNRS/IN2P3, Caen, France
¹¹ Institute of Accelerator Technologies, Ankara University of Physics, Ankara, Turkey
¹² Department of Physics, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey
¹³ Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy
¹⁴ Centro Universitário FEI, São Bernardo do Campo, SP, Brazil
¹⁵ Institute of Natural Science, Karadeniz Teknik Universitesi Trabzon, Trabzon, Turkey
¹⁶ Instituto de Física da Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ, Brazil
¹⁷ Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China
¹⁸ Department of Physics and HINP, The University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
¹⁹ IFIN-HH, Bucarest, Romania
²⁰ Technische Universität Darmstadt, Institut für Kernphysik (IKP), Darmstadt, Germany
²¹ Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
²² School of Science, Huzhou University, Huzhou, China

^* e-mail: zero@if.usp.br

Received: 24 February 2020
Accepted: 24 April 2020
Published online: 26 May 2020

Abstract

Gamma-ray and neutron spectra from the reaction at 15.3 MeV/u were measured with the EDEN array of liquid scintillators at the LNS. The results were compared to GEANT Hadrontherapy physics list simulations in order to assess the reliability of this model for the development of the NUMEN project. A good agreement with the shape of the experimental gamma-ray spectra and a reasonable agreement with the total count rates were obtained. The gamma spectra originated from the nuclear reactions were selected by time coincidence with the Superconducting Cyclotron radio-frequency reference signal. The random coincidence background rate was appropriately described only when the Faraday Cup, the material and geometry of the experimental hall and its contents were included in the simulation with sufficient detail. The information on the radiation spectra is important for the adequate development of the project of the detector arrays and electronic equipment for the advanced phase of NUMEN. Since orders of magnitude larger beam intensities are planned for this phase, the random coincidence rate is also of significant importance, particularly for the performance of the G-NUMEN gamma calorimeter array.