Imaging of primary and secondary radiation-Modelling and experimental results of a radioactive source and a water phantom

In this paper the contribution of primary and secondary radiation from a water phantom to a pinhole volume, as a result of three neutron sources (Cf, AmBe and 5 MeV mono-energetic) and two gamma sources (Cs and Co), is separately estimated using the PTRAC particle tracking option available in MCNP. Also in this paper imaging of the mixed radiation field produced by a Van de Graaf accelerator (when a water phantom is present) is described. In the model, a spherical tally volume, 2 cm in diameter, was placed equidistantly from a radioactive source and 30×30×15 cm3 water phantom. Monte Carlo simulations have been carried out to investigate the level of primary and secondary radiation contributing to the pinhole volume directly from the source and from interactions in the phantom respectively. The spatial distribution of counts clearly discriminated the source and the phantom. The results have shown that the percentage of neutrons reflected from the phantom with energies above 1 MeV increases with mean energy of the source. This method has significant potential to characterise secondary radiation in proton therapy, where it would help to verify the location and the energy delivered during the treatment.