Correlated ionisations in two spatially separated nanometric volumes in the track structure of 241Am alpha particles: comparison with Monte Carlo simulations

TL;DR

This study investigates ionisation correlations in alpha particle tracks within nanometric volumes, comparing experimental nanodosimetric measurements in different gases with Monte Carlo simulations to understand DNA damage mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison between nanodosimetric measurements and Monte Carlo simulations for alpha particle tracks in various gases, enhancing understanding of ionisation correlation effects.

Findings

Measurements in C3H8 matched simulations well.

Simulations with Geant4-DNA agreed with experimental data.

Ionisation correlations influence DNA damage predictions.

Abstract

The production of two double strand breaks in spatially separated locations on the DNA molecule can cause the loss of a whole DNA loop, which can be of substantial length depending on the geometrical position of the two damaged sites and depends on the degree of correlation between ionisation clusters formed in sites of several nanometres in size. In the first part of this paper, nanodosimetric measurements of alpha particle tracks in 1.2 mbar H2O, 1.2 mbar C3H8 and 1.2 mbar C4H8O with the PTB ion counter nanodosimeter were reported. In this second part, the focus is on the geometrical characterisation of the two sites simulated with the nanodosimeter in the three target gases and on the comparison of the measurement results with Monte Carlo simulations. The measurements in 1.2 mbar C3H8 were simulated with a version of the track structure code PTra dedicated to modelling the PTB ion counter nanodosimeter. Further simulations were performed with Geant4-DNA for 241Am alpha particle tracks in liquid water. Simulations of the measurements and the actual measurement results are found to be in good agreement for the investigated irradiation geometries.