Speaker
Description
Particle therapy employs protons and heavy ions for treating deep-seated tumours, yet the biological impact of beam-induced tissue fragmentation remains a crucial concern. Despite the importance of target fragmentation effects, their assessment is challenging, and they are often overlooked in clinical practice. To enhance current clinical treatment plans, precise data on fragmentation cross sections are imperative.
The FOOT (FragmentatiOn Of Target) experiment aims at measuring nuclear fragmentation cross sections in the 50-700 MeV/A beam energy range with about 5% uncertainty. Target nuclei ($^{16}$O,$^{12}$C) fragmentation induced by proton beams is studied via an inverse kinematic approach employing $^{16}$O, $^{12}$C beams impinging on graphite and polyethylene targets. Two complementary setups are used: nuclear emulsion spectrometers measure the production of light charged nuclear fragments (Z≤3), while the magnetic spectrometer focuses on the heavier (Z≥3) fragments.
This presentation will focus on nuclear emulsion spectrometers, specifically highlighting the techniques employed for accurately measuring fragment charges by fully leveraging the correlation between grain density resulting from the energy loss of particles and the particle's specific ionisation. To address this, thermal treatments before film development were applied to induce controlled fading of grains, according to the particle's ionisation. Charge measurement is then performed through two complementary methods: cut based-analysis to distinguish cosmic rays, Z=1 and Z=2 (high energy) fragments and Principal Component Analysis to separate Z=2 (low energy)and Z≥3 fragments.
Results from 200MeV/A and 400MeV/A $^{16}$O beam fragmentation on C and C$_2$H$_4$ targets will be shown. These results will contribute to improve the accuracy of the next generation of biologically oriented Treatment Planning Systems for hadron therapy.
| Collaboration | FOOT Collaboration |
|---|---|
| Role of Submitter | I am the presenter |
