Incorporation of the effect of the composite electric fields of molecular ions as a simulation tool for biological damage due to heavy ion irradiation, 2

Moribayashi, Kengo

Swift heavy ions are a good research tool in the fields of biological physics, surface science, and medical science. For example, in biological physics, although there are several hypotheses, the important phenomenon of relative biological effectiveness (RBE) is not yet fully understood and one might ask why do heavier ions produce more cluster DNA damage and lead to high RBE values. The understanding of RBE is directly connected to the understanding of the reason why cancer therapy using C ions has higher efficiency than that using protons. In this paper, we propose and quantify a novel explanation for RBE that hinges on the effect of the composite electric fields of molecular ions (mainly HO) in a cell that are produced by heavy ion impact ionization processes by comparing the irradiation of a C ion with that of a proton onto the cell.