Beam range estimation by measuring bremsstrahlung

Yamaguchi, Mitsutaka; Torikai, Kota*; Kawachi, Naoki; Shimada, Hirofumi*; Sato, Takahiro; Nagao, Yuto; Fujimaki, Shu; Kokubun, Motohide*; Watanabe, Shin*; Takahashi, Tadayuki*; Arakawa, Kazuo*; Kamiya, Tomihiro; Nakano, Takashi*

We describe a new method for estimating the beam range in heavy-ion radiation therapy by measuring the ion beam bremsstrahlung. We experimentally confirm that the secondary electron bremsstrahlung process provides the dominant bremsstrahlung contribution. A Monte Carlo simulation shows that the number of background photons from annihilation rays is about 1% of the bremsstrahlung strength in the low-energy region used in our estimation (63-68 keV). Agreement between the experimental results and the theoretical prediction for the characteristic shape of the bremsstrahlung spectrum validates the effectiveness of our new method in estimating the ion beam range.