WP1: Energy Degradation and Focusing

Proton beams from clinical facilities need to be adapted both in energy and field size to be able to use them in pre-clinical small animal proton therapy research. The SIRMIO beamline study involves characterization, degradation, collimation and refocusing of the largely diverging degraded beams back to sub-millimeter sigma spot sizes using magnetic quadrupole lenses [1,2,3]. Additionally, the beamline needs to provide high quality beams satisfying the requirements set by other modalities of SIRMIO.

Standard techniques such as three-profile emittance measurement, depth-dose profile fitting combined with Monte Carlo simulations are routinely used produce realistic model of the initial beam. Conventional as well as unconventional materials are explored as beam energy degraders in view of minimizing the emittance growth. Magnetic quadrupole lattices are optimized using accelerator codes together with complete Monte Carlo modeling of the beamline. The beamline comprises mainly of a variable thickness degrader assembly, pairs of variable aperture collimators and a triplet of quadrupole magnets.

Contact

Dr. N. Kurichiyanil, Dr. M. Pinto

People

F. Neri, Dr. N. Kurichiyanil, Dr. M. Pinto, Prof. Dr. J. Schreiber, Prof. Dr. K. Parodi

former members: S. Gerlach (formerly Kundel) 

References

[1] N. Kurichiyanil, M. Pinto et al, “Design of an Adaptable Permanent-Magnet Quadrupole Triplet for Refocusing of Energy Degraded Proton Beams for Small Animal Irradiation”, poster, AAPM-2019, TX, USA, 18-21 Jul 2019.
[2] S. Kundel, M. Pinto et al, “Optimierung einer neuartigen Strahlführung für Kleintierbestrahlungen an einem klinischen Protonen-Therapiezentrum”, poster, DGMP-2019, Stuttgart, DE, 14-18 Sept. 2019.
[3] S. Kundel, M. Pinto et al, “Beamline optimization studies for small animal irradiation at clinical proton therapy facilities”, poster, PTCOG58, Manchester, UK, 10-15 June 2019.