Development and optimisation of grid inserts for a preclinical radiotherapy system and corresponding Monte Carlo beam simulations.

Objective. To develop a physical grid collimator compatible with the X-RAD preclinical radiotherapy system and create a corresponding Monte Carlo (MC) model.Approach. This work presents a methodology for the fabrication of a grid collimator designed for utilisation on the X-RAD preclinical radiotherapy system. Additionally, a MC simulation of the grid is developed, which is compatible with the X-RAD treatment planning system. The grid was manufactured by casting a low melting point alloy, cerrobend, into a silicone mould. The silicone was moulded around a 3D-printed replica of the grid, enabling the production of diverging holes with precise radii and spacing. A MC simulation was conducted on an equivalent 3D grid model and validated using 11 layers of GAFChromic EBT-3 film interspersed in a 3D-printed water-equivalent phantom. A 3D dose distribution was constructed from the film layers, enabling a direct comparison with the MC Simulation.Main results. The film and the MC dose distribution demonstrated a gamma passing rate of 99% for a 1%, 0.5 mm criteria with a 10% threshold applied. The peak-to-valley dose ratio and output factor at the surface were determined to be 20.4 and 0.79, respectively.Significance. The pairing of the grid collimator with a MC simulation can significantly enhance the practicality of grid therapy on the X-RAD. This combination enables further exploration of the biological implications of grid therapy, supported by a knowledge of the complex dose distributions. Moreover, this methodology can be adapted for use in other systems and scenarios.

Dosimetric evaluation of an intraoperative radiotherapy system: a measurement-based and Monte-Carlo modelling investigation.

Intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) is a specialised subset of radiotherapy, where a high radiation dose is delivered to a surgically exposed tumour bed in order to eradicate any remaining cancer cells. The aim of this study was to examine the dose characteristics of the Zeiss Intrabeam IORT device which provides near-isotropic emission of up to 50 kV X-rays. The EGSnrc Monte Carlo (MC) code system was used to simulate the device and percentage depth dose (PDD) data measured with a soft X-ray parallel-plate ionisation chamber were used for model verification. The model provided energy spectra, isodose curves and mean photon energies. In addition, EBT3 Gafchromic film was used to verify the MC model by examining PDDs and 2D dose distributions for various applicators. The differences between MC model and ionisation chamber measurements were within 3% for most points, with a maximum deviation of ~ 9%. Most of the simulated PDD points were within 5% of the film-measured data, with a maximum deviation of ~ 10%. The mean energy of the bare probe was found to be 21.19 keV. The mean photon energy from applicators ranged from 29.00 to 30.85 keV. Results of this study may be useful for future work on creating a system for treatment planning.

Erratum: Whittle maximum likelihood estimate of spectral properties of Rayleigh-Taylor interfacial mixing using hot-wire anemometry experimental data [Phys. Rev. E 102, 053107 (2020)].

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.102.053107.

Whittle maximum likelihood estimate of spectral properties of Rayleigh-Taylor interfacial mixing using hot-wire anemometry experimental data.

Investigating the power density spectrum of fluctuations in Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) interfacial mixing is a means of studying characteristic length, timescales, anisotropies, and anomalous processes. Guided by group theory, analyzing the invariance-based properties of the fluctuations, our paper examines raw time series from hot-wire anemometry measurements in the experiment by Akula et al. [J. Fluid Mech. 816, 619 (2017)JFLSA70022-112010.1017/jfm.2017.95]. The results suggest that the power density spectrum can be modeled as a compound function presented as the product of a power law and an exponential. The data analysis is based on Whittle's approximation of the power density spectrum for independent zero-mean near-Gaussian signals to construct a maximum likelihood estimator of the parameters. Those that maximize the log-likelihood are computed numerically through Newton-Raphson iteration. The Hessian of the log-likelihood is used to evaluate the Fisher information matrix and provide an estimate of the statistical error on the obtained parameters. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is applied to analyze the goodness of fit, by verifying the hypothesis that the ratio between the observed periodogram and the estimated power density spectrum follows a χ^{2} probability distribution. The dependence of the parameters of the compound function is investigated on the range of mode numbers over which the fit is performed. In the domain where the relative errors of the power-law exponent and the exponential decay rate are small and the goodness of fit is excellent, the parameters of the compound function are clearly defined, in agreement with the theory developed in the paper. The study of the power-law spectra in RT mixing data suggests that rigorous physics-based statistical methods can help researchers to see beyond visual inspection.