Hadron shower decomposition in a highly granular calorimeter
The spatial development of showers induced by positive hadrons with momenta 10-80 GeV in the highly granular CALICE scintillator-steel analogue hadronic calorimeter is analysed. The parametrisation of both longitudinal and radial shower profiles with the two- component functions are fit to the test beam data and simulations using the physics lists QGSP_BERT and FTFP_BERT from GEANT4 version 9.6 patch 01. The shower parameters, describing the longitudinal tail and radial halo, are in good agreement between data and simulations and are similar for pions and protons. For the longitudinal development, the most significant difference between data and simulations is in the relative containment of the separated components. For the radial development, the core slope parameter is underestimated by simulations. The physics list FTFP_BERT gives a very good description of proton showers in the studied energy range and gives better predictions of the pion shower development than QGSP_BERT.
Recent improvements on the description of hadronic interactions in Geant4
We present an overview of recent improvements of hadronic models in Geant4 for the physics configurations (Physics Lists) relevant to applications in high energy experiments. During last year the improvements have concentrated on the study of unphysical discontinuities in calorimeter observables in the transition regions between the models used in Physics Lists. The microscopic origin of these have been investigated, and possible improvements of Geant4 code are currently under validation. In this paper we discuss the status of the latest version of Geant4 with emphasis on the most promising new developments, namely the Fritiof based and CHIPS Physics Lists.
The effect of collimation on image quality and radiation safety in digital radiography of small animals
Collimating the primary x-ray beam to the specific area of anatomic interest has traditionally been strongly recommended to produce high quality radiographic images, even though some small animal patients can fit their entire torso on a single radiographic casette or detector. However, modern digital radiography may allow for whole-body projections for these patients at similar quality to specific collimated projections. Lateral and ventrodorsal projections of 31 small dogs were obtained to evaluate the effect of collimation on the quality of the resulting digital radiograph. Each projection was performed using both a collimated and whole-body technique. Scatter radiation was detected during each exposure as well to determine the effect of collimation on radiation safety for veterinary personnel. The resulting images were cropped to portray only the thorax, and were evaluated by five radiologists blinded to the procedure used for each image. Visual grading characteristics analysis was performed. An overall trend towards higher image quality was found in the collimated approach compared to the whole-body, but in most cases this change was not significant. Overall image quality for the ventrodorsal images was found to be significantly better in the collimated approach compared to the whole-body. Evaluation of image histograms suggests that the application of digital processing and the look-up table differs between them, and this may account for a large portion of any quality difference. Over twice as much scatter radiation was detected during the whole-body images as during the collimated images. Overall image quality was rated as adequate to high for almost all images with both approaches. Adequate collimation remains recommended to provide the highest quality images with the lowest exposure to veterinary personnel.