Speaker
Description
With a very low relative charge-to-mass ratio offset of approximately 0.065%, helium (⁴He²⁺) and carbon ions (¹²C⁶⁺) are interesting candidates for being simultaneously accelerated in hadron therapy accelerators. At the same energy per nucleon, helium ions exhibit a stopping range approximately three times greater than that of carbon ions. They can therefore be exploited for online range verification in a detector downstream of the patient during carbon ion therapy.
The synchrotron-based MedAustron Ion Therapy Center provides the opportunity to study the feasibility of such a mixed beam-based in-vivo range verification system due to the availability of 120-402.8 MeV/u carbon beams and the ongoing commissioning of 39.8-402.8 MeV/u helium beams. One possibility for creating this mixed beam is accelerating ⁴He²⁺ and ¹²C⁶⁺ sequentially through the LINAC and subsequently “mixing” the ion species at injection energy in the synchrotron with a double injection scheme. This contribution introduces this newly proposed injection scheme, outlines challenges and presents first feasibility estimates obtained through measurements and particle tracking simulations.
| Region represented | Europe |
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| Paper preparation format | LaTeX |
