Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 327
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-40825-0

Regular Article

Efficient calculation of local dose distributions for response modeling in proton and heavier ion beams^*

¹ Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
² Department of Mathematics, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 118, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
³ Center for Nuclear Technologies, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

^a e-mail: s.greilich@dkfz.de

Received: 23 December 2013
Received in final form: 30 July 2014
Published online: 28 October 2014

Abstract

We present an algorithm for fast and accurate computation of the local dose distribution in MeV beams of protons, carbon ions or other heavy charged particles. It uses compound Poisson modeling of track interaction and successive convolutions for fast computation. It can handle arbitrary complex mixed particle fields over a wide range of fluences. Since the local dose distribution is the essential part of several approaches to model detector efficiency and cellular response it has potential use in ion-beam dosimetry, radiotherapy, and radiobiology.