Geant4 simulation of the ELIMED transport and dosimetry beam linefor high-energy laser-driven ion beam multidisciplinary applications

Milluzzo, G., Pipek, J., Amico, A. G., Cirrone, G. A. P., Cuttone, G., Korn, G., Larosa, G., Leanza, R.,Margarone, D., Petringa, G., Russo, A., Schillaci, F., Scuderi, V., & Romano, F. (2018). Geant4 simulation of theELIMED transport and dosimetry beam line for high-energy laser-driven ion beam multidisciplinary applications.Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors andAssociated Equipment, 909, 298-302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2018.02.066Published in:Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors andAssociated Equipment

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Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 909 (2018) 298–302

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Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A

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Geant4 simulation of the ELIMED transport and dosimetry beam line forhigh-energy laser-driven ion beam multidisciplinary applicationsG. Milluzzo a,b,*, J. Pipek a, A.G. Amico a, G.A.P. Cirrone a, G. Cuttone a, G. Korn c, G. Larosa a,R. Leanza a,b, D. Margarone c, G. Petringa a,b, A. Russo a, F. Schillaci c,a, V. Scuderi c,a,F. Romano d,a

a Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Via Santa Sofia 62, Catania, Italyb Universita di Catania, Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Via S. Sofia 64, Catania, Italyc Institute of Physics ASCR, v.v.i (FZU), ELI-Beamlines project, 182 21 Prague, Czech Republicd National Physical Laboratory, CMES-Medical Radiation Science, Teddington TW11 0LW, Middlesex, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o

Keywords:Laser-driven ionsELIMED beam lineGeant4Multidisciplinary applications

a b s t r a c t

The ELIMED (MEDical and multidisciplinary application at ELI-Beamlines) beam line is being developed atINFN-LNS with the aim of transporting and selecting in energy proton and ion beams accelerated by laser–matterinteraction at ELI-Beamlines in Prague. It will be a section of the ELIMAIA (ELI Multidisciplinary Applicationsof laser-Ion Acceleration) beam line, dedicated to applications, including the medical one, of laser-acceleratedion beams (Margarone et al., 2013) [1]; (Cirrone et al., 2015) [2]. A Monte Carlo model has been developed tosupport the design of the beam line in terms of particle transport efficiency, to optimize the transport parametersat the irradiation point in air and, furthermore, to predict beam parameters in order to deliver dose distributionsof clinical relevance. The application has been developed using the Geant4 (Agostinelli et al., 2013) [3] MonteCarlo toolkit and has been designed in a modular way in order to easily switch on/off geometrical componentsaccording to different experimental setups and user’s requirements, as reported in Pipek et al. (2017) [4],describing the early-stage code and simulations. The application has been delivered to ELI-Beamlines and willbe available for future ELIMAIA’s users as ready-to-use tool useful during experiment preparation and analysis.The final version of the developed application will be described in detail in this contribution, together with thefinal results, in terms of energy spectra and transmission efficiency along the in-vacuum beam line, obtained byperforming end-to-end simulations.

1. Introduction

The ELIMAIA beam line will be located in one of the future experi-mental halls at ELI Beamlines facility in Prague, i.e. the one dedicatedto laser-driven ion acceleration as well as X-ray production and theirpossible multidisciplinary applications.

It will be composed of two sections: the first one is addressed tothe Peta-Watt (PW) laser interaction with solid target, including twoavailable interaction chambers, plasma mirrors and diagnostics, andthe second one, called ELIMED, is a complete transport and dosimetrybeam line dedicated to laser-driven ion beams handling, selecting andmonitoring in view of possible multidisciplinary applications, such asthe medical one. The latter has been in charge of INFN-LNS, whichhas signed a three-years contract with ELI Beamlines in 2014 to design,develop and realize the ELIMED beam line, including all the transportas well as dosimetry elements [1,2,5,6]. The main goal is to provide

* Corresponding author. Present address: School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK.E-mail address: G.Milluzzo@qub.ac.uk (G. Milluzzo).

stable and reproducible beams suitable for applications with a controlledacceptable energy spread (from 5% up to 20%) and flux per shot andhomogeneous lateral and longitudinal dose distributions. The ELIMEDbeam line will be composed of two main transport magnetic elements: aset of five permanent magnet quadrupoles (PMQs), capable of focusingthe ion species and the energy component to be transported [7],followed by an energy selector system (ESS) composed of 4 resistivedipoles and working as a single reference trajectory, capable to selectthe wanted energy, thanks also to a central slit with a variable width [8].The in-vacuum transport section is followed by a final part in air, con-sisting of relative and absolute dosimeters, such as a secondary emissionmonitor (SEM), an in-transmission double gap ionization chamber (IC)and a Faraday cup (FC) [9,10]. Moreover, a specific Time Of Flight(TOF)-based diagnostics system, based on diamond as well as silicon car-bide detectors, will be also used along the ELIMED beam line to provideonline measurements of particle energy distribution and flux [11–13].

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2018.02.066Received 20 November 2017; Received in revised form 7 February 2018; Accepted 13 February 2018Available online 17 February 20180168-9002/© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

G. Milluzzo, J. Pipek, A.G. Amico et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 909 (2018) 298–302

Fig. 1. ELIMED transport and dosimetry beam line simulated with Geant4 simulation toolkit, from the source down to the irradiation point. The quadrupole system(PMQs), the Energy Selector System (ESS) and the Central slit, the resistive PMQs and Stereers, the Ionization Chamber (IC) and the Faraday Cup (FC) are reportedin figure.

During the realization, a crucial role has been played by the MonteCarlo Geant4 simulation of the whole ELIMED beam line, which hassupported the design of some key elements and the study and theoptimization of beam transport parameters [4]. The Geant4 basedapplication, reproducing all the transport and dosimetry elements,has been delivered to ELI-Beamlines and will be a tool available forfuture ELIMAIA’s users interested in simulating their own experimentalsetup.

The final ELIMED application, developed at INFN-LNS, will bedescribed in detail, together with some comparisons with results fromreference transport code. Moreover, a dedicated study of the dependenceof proton energy spectra and transmission efficiency downstream thein-vacuum section from the ESS central slit aperture will be alsoreported.

2. The Geant4 ELIMED application

The simulation software Geant4 (GEometry ANd Tracking) [3,14,15],based on the Monte Carlo method, is one of the most widely used MonteCarlo codes for particle interaction and transport in the matter. Thistoolkit is currently used in several fields, from High Energy Physics tomedical physics and space science, thanks to its advanced functionalitiesin the geometrical description and to a wide and well-tested set ofphysics models. Thanks to its robustness, versatility and reliability ofthe implemented physical processes, Geant4 has been chosen as themost appropriate code for the ELIMED transport and dosimetry beamline simulation.

The application was developed following four main requirements:

∙ Realistically reproducing each single beam line element, in termsof geometry and magnetic features, maintaining a good flexibilityof the code for user experimental setups.

∙ Implementing a realistic laser-driven ion source with specificenergy and angular distribution. It is possible to use typicalParticle In Cell simulation outputs as input of the simulation toobtain realistic results.

∙ Giving the possibility to retrieve outputs at different positionsalong the beam line, including the final irradiation point.

∙ Providing a easy-to-use and friendly interface of the code forfuture users.

In order to fulfill all these requirements, the ELIMED application hasbeen conceived as complex and modular code, in which the differentgeometrical components, as well as their functionalities can be switchedoff/on according to the specific purpose of the simulation. The schemeof the whole ELIMED beam line simulated with Geant4, indicating themain beam line components, is reported in Fig. 1.

3. Transport beam line validation with reference optics analyticcodes

The first transport element, is composed of five focusing high-gradient permanent quadrupoles (PMQs), whose configuration, i.e. rela-tive distances, is determined according to the particle species and energyto be transported [7]. The ELIMED Geant4 application includes twodifferent implementations of the PMQs geometry, which can be selectedaccording to the purpose of the simulation: a simplified model in whichthe PMQs have been simulated as simple iron cylinders of differentlength, suitable when the purpose of the simulation is the transportoptimization of primary beam along the whole beam line (Fig. 1); adetailed model in which a stainless shielding layer is added aroundthe PMQ bore and an internal structure of the magnet composed ofalternating aluminum and neodymium part is included, more suitableto study secondary radiation production. The PMQs system is followedby the Energy Selector System (ESS) placed in a in-vacuum chamberand composed by four resistive electromagnetic dipoles tunable from0.17 up to 1.2 T, coupled with a central slit with variable aperture [8].The ESS geometric components have been reproduced in details in theGeant4 model. For both transport elements, to realistically simulate thePMQs focusing effect and the variable magnetic field of the ESS dipoles,3D magnetic field maps can be imported in the application. They havebeen obtained with the COMSOL [16] and OPERA [17] software foreach quadrupole and for the whole ESS. A dedicated class has beenimplemented, able to read the magnetic field components included inthe imported map, interpolate the regular grid (typically 1 mm step) andsimulate the magnetic field effect. The implementation of the magneticfields in the ELIMED application has been checked by comparing thevalues obtained with Geant4 with the reference code COMSOL. Fig. 2shows the magnetic field gradient dBy/dx as a function of the radialdirection (𝑥) for the longer (160 mm length) PMQ obtained with Geant4(blue squares) and with COMSOL (red circles). On the other hand, themagnetic field intensity at the center of the dipole along the radialdirection again achieved for the two different codes is shown in Fig. 3.The good agreement obtained for both the magnetic field elements,demonstrates the correct implementation of the maps within the Geant4-based application.

The particle tracking through the magnetic field obtained withGeant4 has been also benchmarked by comparing the proton trajectoriesalong the five magnetic field and the ESS with the ones obtained, in thesame configuration, with the reference transport code, SIMION [18],used for optics studies. In particular, a specific configuration of thePMQs optimized to transport 60 MeV protons, obtained by means ofthe COMSOL software has been reproduced in the ELIMED application.Parallel 60 MeV proton beams with two different initial positions,i.e. (±3 mm, 0, 0), have been simulated and the particle position alongthe full trajectory has been registered step by step. Fig. 4 (top) showsthe trajectories obtained with Geant4 (blue line) and SIMION (light

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Fig. 2. Magnetic field gradient d𝐵𝑦/d𝑥 as a function of radial axis at thecenter of the 160 mm PMQ obtained with Geant4 (blue closed squares) andwith COMSOL (red closed circles).

Fig. 3. Magnetic field module along the radial axis at the center of the dipole:comparison between Geant4 (blue squares) and COMSOL (red circles).

blue dotted line) in the 𝑥–𝑧 plane along the five PMQs, where 𝑥 and𝑧 are respectively the radial and axial direction. An optimal agreementbetween the tracks obtained with the two codes has been found, with amaximum discrepancy of 150 μm as it is shown in Fig. 4 (bottom).

Similar comparisons have been carried out also for protons goingthrough the ESS. In particular a parallel 60 MeV proton beam has beensimulated in the two codes, considering as a starting point the ESSentrance. A magnetic field of 0.45 T has been set in both the simulationsin order to transport 60 MeV protons according to the scaling lawreported in [8]. The comparison in Fig. 5 shows that the tracks areoverlapped with a maximum deviation of about 10 μm at the slit position(Fig. 5), i.e. at the symmetry center of the ESS, whose the width wasfixed to 10 mm in the performed simulation.

4. In vacuum beam transport results

Once the reliability of the ELIMED application has been properlydemonstrated as shown in Section 3, simulations from the source downto the in-air irradiation point have been performed in order to studythe expected energy spectra and fluence per shot. Since experimentaldata are not yet available at the ELIMAIA beam line, Particle In Cellsimulations have be used as input of the Geant4 simulations [19]. Inparticular, two-dimensional PIC simulations have been performed, re-producing the interaction of 1 PW laser and a thin nanosphere target. Atypical exponential proton energy spectrum with a maximum energy of100 MeV is reproduced, including the energy-angle dependence, reach-ing a maximum divergence of 60◦ at low energy (<20 MeV) and 20◦ at

Fig. 4. Top: Comparison of the proton tracks simulated using SIMION (light bluedotted line) and Geant4 (blue line) along the focusing system. The projectionof the tracks on the 𝑥–𝑧 plane for starting positions of 𝑥 = ±3 mm are shown.Bottom: Difference between the tracks obtained with Geant4 and SIMION alongthe PMQs system (black line). (For interpretation of the references to color inthis figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article).

Fig. 5. Comparison of the 60-MeV proton trajectory within the ESS simulatedby SIMION (light blue dotted line) and Geant4 (blue line) along the whole ESS.The difference between the tracks along the ESS in also reported (black line).(For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader isreferred to the web version of this article).

high-energy (>20 MeV). According to the PIC-2D simulation, the totalnumber of protons per shot is 8.88 ⋅ 1011. Nevertheless, 2.2 ⋅ 107 protonshave been used as input of the performed Geant4 simulations, assuring agood statistics. The obtained results have been finally normalized to thenumber of protons per shot given by PIC simulations, to obtain realisticpredictions. Fig. 6 shows the normalized energy spectra retrieved ondifferent planes along the beam line. In particular, the light blue oneis related to the PIC2D laser-driven proton source energy spectrum,the blue one is the energy spectrum of the beam transmitted throughthe PMQs, i.e. just after the last quadrupole and the black one is theenergy spectrum after the magnetic selection of the ESS, i.e. retrieveddownstream the ESS. Both the PMQs and the ESS were set to optimizethe transport of 60 MeV protons, using the same configuration reportedfor the code validation in Section 3. As it is expected, a broad energyspectrum is still present downstream the PMQs, although they were setfor 60 MeV proton transport. However, the focusing effect of the PMQsresults in a lower divergence of protons with the selected energy withrespect to other energies, so that the injection in the ESS is optimized forthe specific energy. In agreement with the results reported in [8] Fig. 7shows the angular distribution of 60 ± 6 MeV protons downstream the

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Fig. 6. Proton energy spectrum at the source (light blue), after the PMQs (blue)and downstream of the ESS (black). (For interpretation of the references to colorin this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article).

Fig. 7. Angular distribution (𝜃) of protons in the energy range 60 ± 6 MeV afterthe quadrupole system.

Table 1Energy spread and transmission efficiency for 60 MeV proton beam, consideringthree different slit widths.

Slit width [mm] Energy spread Transmission efficiency

5 7% 5%10 8% 8%20 11% 10%

PMQs, as they are injected in the ESS. A divergence of about 0.1◦ hasbeen found, confirming the optimized injection in the ESS.

As shown in Fig. 6, the results obtained with the Geant4 applicationconfirm that the ELIMED beam line will be able to deliver beams suitablefor multidisciplinary applications, selecting in energy beams initiallyemitted with broad angular and energy distributions. In particular,as already mentioned, the central slit width determines the energyresolution of particles reaching the end of the ESS. In order to investigatethe energy spread dependence on the slit aperture, simulations havebeen performed fixing the ESS magnetic field to 0.45 T, necessary toselect 60 MeV protons, and varying the slit width (5, 10 and 20 mm).The energy spectra registered downstream the ESS are shown in Fig. 8.As expected, smaller slit aperture provides lower energy spread, rangingfrom 7% up to 11% as reported in Table 1. On the other hand, the slitwidth strongly affects the transmission efficiency, resulting higher forlarger apertures than for narrower ones. The transmission efficienciesfor 5, 10 and 20 mm slit width, evaluated as the ratio of the transmitted(output) and the emitted (input) protons within the energy range60 ± 6 MeV are listed in Table 1.

In order to assure a limited energy spread and at the same timean acceptable number of particles transmitted per shot, still reasonable

Fig. 8. Energy spectrum just for 60 MeV proton configuration downstreamthe ESS with a 20 mm (blue), 10 mm (red) and 5 mm (green) slit aperture.(For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader isreferred to the web version of this article).

for multidisciplinary applications, a compromise has to be found alsoaccording to the specific experimental requirements.

5. Conclusion

The described Geant4-based application, reproducing in details geo-metrical as well as magnetic field features of the ELIMED transport anddosimetry elements, has been successfully validated comparing the fieldimplementation and the tracks with the reference codes. Top-to-bottomsimulations allowed to study the transported beam characteristics alongthe in-vacuum beam line, i.e. after the PMQs and at the ESS exit,confirming the influence of the slit width on the final energy spreadand particle transmission efficiency. Further studies related to the finalin-air section of the ELIMED beam line have been performed, includingspatial dose distributions relevant for clinical applications and resultswill be presented in future works.

Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the project ELI-Extreme LightInfrastructure-phase 2 (𝐶𝑍.02.1.01∕0.0∕0.0∕15_008∕0000162) from Eu-ropean Regional Development Fund, and partially by the projects no.𝐶𝑍.1.07∕2.3.00∕20.0087 and 𝐶𝑍.1.07∕2.3.00∕20.0279, which were co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the CzechRepublic.

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