COMPARISON OF BNCT DOSIMETRY CALCULATIONS USING DIFFERENT GEANT4 PHYSICS LISTS

Area of Science:

• Medical physics
• Computational physics
• Radiation dosimetry

Background:

• Accurate simulation of neutron interactions is crucial for radiation dosimetry.
• Geant4 is a widely used toolkit for particle transport simulations.
• Different Geant4 physics lists may yield varying dosimetry results.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the performance of various Geant4 physics lists in calculating neutron absorbed and depth-dose distributions.
• To evaluate the impact of S(α, β) data on simulation accuracy.
• To validate Geant4 results against FLUKA, a benchmark Monte Carlo code.

Main Methods:

• Simulations were performed using Geant4 with QBBC, QGSP_BERT, and neutron high precision physics lists.
• Calculations included total absorbed dose, boron dose, and non-boron dose in phantom.
• Depth-dose profiles along the beam axis were analyzed for neutrons (0.0253 eV to 10 MeV) and secondary particles.
• Results were compared with FLUKA simulation data.

Main Results:

• The neutron high precision physics list, particularly with S(α, β) data, demonstrated superior agreement with FLUKA.
• Discrepancies were observed between different physics lists in dose calculations.
• The inclusion of S(α, β) data improved the accuracy of neutron dosimetry simulations.

Conclusions:

• The neutron high precision physics list in Geant4, incorporating S(α, β) data, is recommended for accurate neutron dosimetry.
• Careful selection of physics lists is essential for reliable radiation transport simulations.
• Further studies may explore other physics lists and energy ranges.