Real-time imaging for dose evaluation during antiproton irradiation

Online monitoring of the stopping distribution of particle beams used for radiotherapy provides the possibility of detecting possible errors in dose deposition early during a given treatment session, and may therefore help to improve the quality of the therapy. Antiproton annihilation events produce several long-range secondary particles which can be detected in real time by standard high energy particle physics detector systems. In this note, Monte Carlo calculations are performed in order to study the feasibility of real-time imaging by detecting charged pions produced during antiproton irradiation of typical biological targets. A simple treatment plan in a water phantom is simulated and the results show that by detecting π± the position and the size of the planned target volume can be located with precision in the order of 1 mm.