Geometry optimisation of graphite energy degrader for proton therapy

Introduction: Cyclotron-based proton therapy facilities use an energy degrader of variable thickness to deliver beams of the different energies required by a patient treatment plan; scattering and straggling in the degrader give rise to an inherent emittance increase and subsequent particle loss in the downstream energy-selection system (ESS). Here we study alternative graphite degrader geometries and examine with Monte-Carlo simulations the induced emittance growth and consequent particle transmission. Methods: We examined the conventional multiple-wedge degrader used in the Paul Scherrer Institute PROSCAN proton therapy system, the equivalent parallel-sided degrader, and a single block degrader of equivalent thickness. G4Beamline Monte-Carlo tracking of protons was benchmarked against measurements of the existing degrader for proton energies from 75 to 230 MeV, and used to validate simulations of the alternative geometries. Results: Using a careful calculation of the beam emittance growth, we determined that a single-block degrader placed close to the collimators of the ESS is expected to deliver significantly larger transmission, up to 17% larger at 150 MeV. At the lowest deliverable of 75 MeV there is still a clear improvement in beam transmission. Conclusions: Whilst dose rates are not presently limited on the PROSCAN system at higher energies, a single-block degrader offers the ability to access either lower energies for treatment or a larger dose rate at 75 MeV in case transmission optimisation is desired. Single-block degraders should be considered for the delivery of low-energy protons from a cyclotron-based particle therapy system

The AD and ELENA orbit, trajectory and intensity measurement systems

This paper describes the new Antiproton Decelerator (AD) orbit measurement system and the Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA) orbit, trajectory and intensity measurement system. The AD machine at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is presently being used to decelerate antiprotons from 3.57 GeV/c to 100 MeV/c for matter vs anti-matter comparative studies. The ELENA machine, presently under commissioning, has been designed to provide an extra deceleration stage down to 13.7 MeV/c. The AD orbit system is based on 32 horizontal and 27 vertical electrostatic Beam Position Monitor (BPM) fitted with existing low noise front-end amplifiers while the ELENA system consists of 24 \gls{BPM}s equipped with new low-noise head amplifiers. In both systems the front-end amplifiers generate a difference (delta) and a sum (sigma) signal which are sent to the digital acquisition system, placed tens of meters away from the AD or ELENA rings, where they are digitized and further processed. The beam position is calculated by dividing the difference signal by the sum signal either using directly the raw digitized data for measuring the turn-by-turn trajectory in the ELENA system or after down-mixing the signals to baseband for the orbit measurement in both machines. The digitized sigma signal will be used in the ELENA system to calculate the bunched beam intensity and the Schottky parameters with coasting beam after passing through different signal processing chain. The digital acquisition arrangement for both systems is based on the same hardware, also used in the ELENA Low Level Radio Frequency (LLRF) system, which follows the VME Switched Serial (VXS) enhancement of the Versa Module Eurocard 64x extension (VME64x) standard and includes VITA 57 standard Field Programmable Gate Array Mezzanine Card (FMC). The digital acquisition Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and Digital Signal Processor (DSP) firmware shares many common functionalities with the LLRF system but has been tailored for this measurement application in particular. Specific control and acquisition software has been developed for these systems. Both systems are installed in AD and ELENA. The AD orbit system currently measures the orbit in AD while the ELENA system is being used in the commissioning of the ELENA ring

Strongly curved super-conducting magnets: beam optics modeling and field quality

Superconducting (SC) dipoles with a strong curvature (radius smaller than 2 meters, for an aperture of about 100 mm and a length of 1-3 meters) are required for applications where compactness is key, such as the synchrotron and gantry for Carbon-ion therapy developed within the European program HITRIplus. Such magnets challenge several assumptions in the field description and put to the test the range of validity of beam optics codes. In particular, the equivalence that holds for the straight magnets between the transverse multipoles description obtained from the Fourier analysis (used for magnet design and measurements) and the Taylor expansion of the vertical field component along the horizontal axis (used in beam optics) is not valid any longer. Proper fringe field modelling also becomes important due to the curved geometry and the aperture being large compared to the magnetic length. We explore the feasibility and the limits of modelling such magnets with optics elements (such as sector bends and multipoles), which allows parametric optics studies for optimization, field quality definition and fast long-term multi-pass tracking.Superconducting dipoles with a strong curvature (radius smaller than 2 meters, for an aperture of about 100 mm and a length of 1-3 meters) are required for applications where compactness is key, such as the synchrotron and gantry for Carbon-ion therapy developed within the European program HITRIplus.Such magnets challenge several assumptions in the field description and put to the test the range of validity of beam optics codes. In particular, the equivalence that holds for the straight magnets between the transverse multipoles description obtained from the Fourier analysis (used for magnet design and measurements) and the Taylor expansion of the vertical field component along the horizontal axis (used in beam optics) is not valid any longer. A proper fringe field modelling also becomes important, due to the curved geometry and the aperture being large compared to the magnetic length.We explore the feasibility and the limits of modeling such magnets with optics elements (such as sector bends and multipoles), which allows parametric optics studies for optimization, field quality definition and fast long-term multi-pass tracking