Engineering Commons^™

A Comparison Of X-Ray And Proton Beam Low Energy Secondary Electron Track Structures Using The Low Energy Models Of Geant4, Aimee Mcnamara, Susanna Guatelli, Dale Prokopovich, Mark Reinhard, Anatoly Rosenfeld

Susanna Guatelli

"Purpose: Lethal cell damage by ionising radiation is generally initiated by the formation of complex strand breaks, resulting from ionisation clusters in the DNA molecule. A better understanding of the effect of the distribution of ionisation clusters within the cell and particularly in regard to DNA segments could be beneficial to radiation therapy treatment planning. Low energy X-rays generate an abundance of low energy electrons similar to that associated with MeV protons. The study and comparison of the track structure of photon and proton beams could permit the substitution of photon microbeams for single cell ion irradiations at proton facilities …