Heavy Ion Reaction Modeling For Hadrontherapy Applications

A comprehensive and reliable description of nucleus-nucleus interactions represents a crucial need in different interdisciplinary fields. In particular, hadrontherapy monitoring by means of in-beam positron emission tomography (PET) requires, in addition to measuring, the capability of calculating the activity of beta(+)-decaying nuclei produced in the irradiated tissue. For this purpose, in view of treatment monitoring at the Heidelberg Ion Therapy (HIT) facility, the transport and interaction Monte Carlo code FLUKA is a promising candidate. It is provided with the description of heavy ion reactions at intermediate and low energies by two specific event generators. In-beam PET experiments performed at GSI for a few beam-target combinations have been simulated and first comparisons between the measured and calculated beta(+)-activity are available.