Abstract: Purpose: In the present work, the authors compare geometrical and Monte Carlo projectors in detail. The geometrical projectors considered were the conventional geometrical Siddon ray-tracer (S-RT) and the orthogonal distance-based ray-tracer (OD-RT), based on computing the orthogonal distance from the center of image voxel to the line-of-response. A comparison of these geometrical projectors was performed using different point spread function (PSF) models. The Monte Carlo-based method under consideration involves an extensive model of the system response matrix based on Monte Carlo simulations and is computed off-line and stored on disk. Methods: Comparisons were performed using simulated and experimental data of the commercial small animal PET scanner rPET. Results: The results demonstrate that the orthogonal distance-based ray-tracer and Siddon ray-tracer using PSF image-space convolutions yield better images in terms of contrast and spatial resolution than those obtained after using the conventional method and the multiray-based S-RT. Furthermore, the Monte Carlo-based method yields slight improvements in terms of contrast and spatial resolution with respect to these geometrical projectors. Conclusions: The orthogonal distance-based ray-tracer and Siddon ray-tracer using PSF image-space convolutions represent satisfactory alternatives to factorizing the system matrix or to the conventional on-the-fly ray-tracing methods for list-mode reconstruction, where an extensive modeling based on Monte Carlo simulations is unfeasible.

Abstract: The response of pions and protons in the energy range of 20-180 GeV, produced at CERN's SPS H8 test-beam line in the ATLAS iron-scintillator Tile hadron calorimeter, has been measured. The test-beam configuration allowed the measurement of the longitudinal shower development for pions and protons up to 20 nuclear interaction lengths. It was found that pions penetrate deeper in the calorimeter than protons. However, protons induce showers that are wider laterally to the direction of the impinging particle. Including the measured total energy response, the pion-to-proton energy ratio and the resolution, all observations are consistent with a higher electromagnetic energy fraction in pion-induced showers. The data are compared with GEANT4 simulations using several hadronic physics lists. The measured longitudinal shower profiles are described by an analytical shower parametrization within an accuracy of 5-10%. The amount of energy leaking out behind the calorimeter is determined and parametrized as a function of the beam energy and the calorimeter depth. This allows for a leakage correction of test-beam results in the standard projective geometry.

Abstract: Objective. Background events are one of the most relevant contributions to image degradation in Compton camera imaging for hadron therapy treatment monitoring. A study of the background and its contribution to image degradation is important to define future strategies to reduce the background in the system. Approach. In this simulation study, the percentage of different kinds of events and their contribution to the reconstructed image in a two-layer Compton camera have been evaluated. To this end, GATE v8.2 simulations of a proton beam impinging on a PMMA phantom have been carried out, for different proton beam energies and at different beam intensities. Main results. For a simulated Compton camera made of Lanthanum (III) Bromide monolithic crystals, coincidences caused by neutrons arriving from the phantom are the most common type of background produced by secondary radiations in the Compton camera, causing between 13% and 33% of the detected coincidences, depending on the beam energy. Results also show that random coincidences are a significant cause of image degradation at high beam intensities, and their influence in the reconstructed images is studied for values of the time coincidence windows from 500 ps to 100 ns. Significance. Results indicate the timing capabilities required to retrieve the fall-off position with good precision. Still, the noise observed in the image when no randoms are considered make us consider further background rejection methods.

Abstract: in high energy hadronic collisions, a general CP-violating Higgs boson Phi with accompanying jets can be efficiently produced via gluon fusion, which is mediated by heavy quark loops. In this article, we study the dominant sub-channel gg -> ggg Phi of the gluon fusion production process with triple real emission corrections at order alpha(5)(s). We go beyond the heavy top-quark approximation and include the full mass dependence of the top- and bottom-quark contributions. Furthermore, in a specific model we demonstrate the features of our program and show the impact of bottom-quark loop contributions in combination with large values of tan beta on differential distributions sensitive to CP-rneasurements of the Higgs boson.

Abstract: Monte Carlo methods provide detailed and accurate results for radiation transport simulations. Unfortunately, the high computational cost of these methods limits its usage in real-time applications. Moreover, existing computer codes do not provide a methodology for adapting these kinds of simulations to specific problems without advanced knowledge of the corresponding code system, and this restricts their applicability. To help solve these current limitations, we present PenRed, a general-purpose, standalone, extensible and modular framework code based on PENELOPE for parallel Monte Carlo simulations of electron-photon transport through matter. It has been implemented in C++ programming language and takes advantage of modern object-oriented technologies. In addition, PenRed offers the capability to read and process DICOM images as well as to construct and simulate image-based voxelized geometries, so as to facilitate its usage in medical applications. Our framework has been successfully verified against the original PENELOPE Fortran code. Furthermore, the implemented parallelism has been tested showing a significant improvement in the simulation time without any loss in precision of results. Program summary Program title: PenRed: Parallel Engine for Radiation Energy Deposition. CPC Library link to program files: https://doi .org /10 .17632/rkw6tvtngy.1 Licensing provision: GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL). Programming language: C++ standard 2011. Nature of problem: Monte Carlo simulations usually require a huge amount of computation time to achieve low statistical uncertainties. In addition, many applications necessitate particular characteristics or the extraction of specific quantities from the simulation. However, most available Monte Carlo codes do not provide an efficient parallel and truly modular structure which allows users to easily customise their code to suit their needs without an in-depth knowledge of the code system. Solution method: PenRed is a fully parallel, modular and customizable framework for Monte Carlo simulations of the passage of radiation through matter. It is based on the PENELOPE [1] code system, from which inherits its unique physics models and tracking algorithms for charged particles. PenRed has been coded in C++ following an object-oriented programming paradigm restricted to the C++11 standard. Our engine implements parallelism via a double approach: on the one hand, by using standard C++ threads for shared memory, improving the access and usage of the memory, and, on the other hand, via the MPI standard for distributed memory infrastructures. Notice that both kinds of parallelism can be combined together in the same simulation. Moreover, both threads and MPI processes, can be balanced using the builtin load balance system (RUPER-LB [30]) to maximise the performance on heterogeneous infrastructures. In addition, PenRed provides a modular structure with methods designed to easily extend its functionality. Thus, users can create their own independent modules to adapt our engine to their needs without changing the original modules. Furthermore, user extensions will take advantage of the builtin parallelism without any extra effort or knowledge of parallel programming. Additional comments including restrictions and unusual features: PenRed has been compiled in linux systems withg++ of GCC versions 4.8.5, 7.3.1, 8.3.1 and 9; clang version 3.4.2 and intel C++ compiler (icc) version 19.0.5.281. Since it is a C++11-standard compliant code, PenRed should be able to compile with any compiler with C++11 support. In addition, if the code is compiled without MPI support, it does not require any non standard library. To enable MPI capabilities, the user needs to install whatever available MPI implementation, such as openMPI [24] or mpich [25], which can be found in the repositories of any linux distribution. Finally, to provide DICOM processing support, PenRed can be optionally compiled using the dicom toolkit (dcmtk) [32] library. Thus, PenRed has only two optional dependencies, an MPI implementation and the dcmtk library.