The FLUKA Monte Carlo code is used extensively at CERN for all beam-machine interactions, radioprotection calculations and facility design of forthcoming projects. Such needs require the code to be consistently reliable over the entire energy range (from MeV to TeV) for all projectiles (full suite of elementary particles and heavy ions). Outside CERN, among various applications worldwide, FLUKA serves as a core tool for the HIT and CNAO hadron-therapy facilities in Europe. Therefore, medical applications further impose stringent requirements in terms of reliability and predictive power, which demands constant refinement of sophisticated nuclear models and continuous code improvement. Some of the latest developments implemented in FLUKA are presented in this paper, with particular emphasis on issues and concerns pertaining to CERN and medical applications. I.Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Nuclear Data Sheets 120 (2014) 211-214 0090-3752/

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Monte Carlo (MC) codes are increasingly spreading in the hadrontherapy community due to their detailed description of radiation transport and interaction with matter. The suitability of a MC code for application to hadrontherapy demands accurate and reliable physical models capable of handling all components of the expected radiation field. This becomes extremely important for correctly performing not only physical but also biologically based dose calculations, especially in cases where ions heavier than protons are involved. In addition, accurate prediction of emerging secondary radiation is of utmost importance in innovative areas of research aiming at in vivo treatment verification. This contribution will address the recent developments of the FLUKA MC code and its practical applications in this field. Refinements of the FLUKA nuclear models in the therapeutic energy interval lead to an improved description of the mixed radiation field as shown in the presented benchmarks against experimental data with both 4He and 12C ion beams. Accurate description of ionization energy losses and of particle scattering and interactions lead to the excellent agreement of calculated depth–dose profiles with those measured at leading European hadron therapy centers, both with proton and ion beams. In order to support the application of FLUKA in hospital-based environments, Flair, the FLUKA graphical interface, has been enhanced with the capability of translating CT DICOM images into voxel-based computational phantoms in a fast and well-structured way. The interface is capable of importing also radiotherapy treatment data described in DICOM RT standard. In addition, the interface is equipped with an intuitive PET scanner geometry generator and automatic recording of coincidence events. Clinically, similar cases will be presented both in terms of absorbed dose and biological dose calculations describing the various available features.

The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to collide proton beams of unprecedented energy, in order to extend the frontiers of high-energy particle physics. During the first very successful running period in 2010-2013, the LHC was routinely storing protons at 3.5-4 TeV with a total beam energy of up to 146 MJ, and even higher stored energies are foreseen in the future. This puts extraordinary demands on the control of beam losses. An un-controlled loss of even a tiny fraction of the beam could cause a superconducting magnet to undergo a transition into a normal-conducting state, or in the worst case cause material damage. Hence a multi-stage collimation system has been installed in order to safely intercept high-amplitude beam protons before they are lost elsewhere. To guarantee adequate protection from the collimators, a detailed theoretical understanding is needed. This article presents results of numerical simulations of the distribution of beam losses around the LHC that have leaked out of the collimation system. The studies include tracking of protons through the fields of more than 5000 magnets in the 27 km LHC ring over hundreds of revolutions, and Monte-Carlo simulations of particle-matter interactions both in collimators and machine elements being hit by escaping particles. The simulation results agree typically within a factor 2 with measurements of beam loss distributions from the previous LHC run. Considering the complex simulation, which must account for a very large number of unknown imperfections, and in view of the total losses around the ring spanning over 7 orders of magnitude, we consider this an excellent agreement. Our results give confidence in the simulation tools, which are used also for the design of future accelerators.

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