Calculation of stopping power ratios for carbon ion dosimetry

Water-to-air stopping power ratio calculations for the ionization chamber dosimetry of clinical carbon ion beams with initial energies from 50 to 450 MeV/u have been performed using the Monte Carlo technique. To simulate the transport of a particle in water the computer code SHIELD-HIT v2 was used, which is a newly developed version where substantial modifications were implemented on its predecessor SHIELD-HIT v1 (Gudowska et al 2004 Phys. Med. Biol. 49 1933-58). The code was completely rewritten replacing formerly used single precision variables with double precision variables. The lowest particle transport specific energy was decreased from 1 MeV/u down to 10 keV/u by modifying the Bethe-Bloch formula, thus widening its range for medical dosimetry applications. In addition, the code includes optionally MSTAR and ICRU-73 stopping power data. The fragmentation model was verified and its parameters were also adjusted. The present code version shows excellent agreement with experimental data. It has been used to compute the physical quantities needed for the calculation of stopping power ratios, s(water,air), of carbon beams. Compared with the recommended constant value given in the IAEA Code of Practice, the differences found in the present investigations varied between 0.5% and 1% at the plateau region, respectively for 400 MeV/u and 50 MeV/u beams, and up to 2.3% in the vicinity of the Bragg peak for 50 MeV/u.