Analysis of Different Detector Layouts for Proton Beam Tomography

Professor Alarcon’s lab is producing proton beam detectors, and this project is focused on informing the decision as to which layout of detector is more effective at producing an accurate backprojection for an equal number of data channels. The comparison is between “square pad” detectors and “wire pad” detectors. The square pad detector consists of a grid of square pads all of identical size, that each collect their own data. The wire pad detector consists of large rectangular pads that span the entire detector in one direction, with 2 additional layers of identical pads each rotated by 60° from the previous. In order to test each design Python was used to simulate Gaussian beams of varying amplitudes, position and size and integrate them in each of the two methods. They were then backprojected and fit to a Gaussian function and the error between the backprojected parameters and the original parameters of the beam were measured.