Zero degree measurements of 12C fragmentation at 95 MeV/nucleon on thin targets

TL;DR

This paper reports zero-degree fragmentation cross section measurements of 12C at 95 MeV/nucleon on thin targets, crucial for validating nuclear interaction models used in ion therapy.

Contribution

It provides new experimental data on 12C fragmentation at zero degrees, filling a gap in existing nuclear interaction models for ion therapy.

Findings

Measured zero-degree fragmentation cross sections for 12C at 95 MeV/nucleon.

Validated nuclear interaction models with new experimental data.

Enhanced understanding of secondary particle production in ion therapy.

Abstract

During therapeutic treatments using ions such as carbon, nuclear interactions between the incident ions and nuclei present in organic tissues may occur, leading to the attenuation of the incident beam intensity and to the production of secondary light charged particles. As the biological dose deposited in the tumor and the surrounding healthy tissues depends on the beam composition, an accurate knowledge of the fragmentation processes is thus essential. In particular, the nuclear interaction models have to be validated using experimental double differential cross sections which are still very scarce. An experiment was realized in 2011 at GANIL to obtain these cross sections for a 95 MeV/nucleon carbon beam on different thin targets for angles raging from 4 to 43{\deg} . In order to complete these data, a new experiment was performed on September 2013 at GANIL to measure the fragmentation cross section at zero degree for a 95 MeV/nucleon carbon beam on thin targets. In this work, the experimental setup will be described, the analysis method detailed and the results presented.