CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain.
Centre For Medical Radiation Physics, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia.
Med Phys. 2021 Jan;48(1):19-56. doi: 10.1002/mp.14226. Epub 2020 Dec 12.
Geant4 is a Monte Carlo code extensively used in medical physics for a wide range of applications, such as dosimetry, micro- and nanodosimetry, imaging, radiation protection, and nuclear medicine. Geant4 is continuously evolving, so it is crucial to have a system that benchmarks this Monte Carlo code for medical physics against reference data and to perform regression testing.
To respond to these needs, we developed G4-Med, a benchmarking and regression testing system of Geant4 for medical physics.
G4-Med currently includes 18 tests. They range from the benchmarking of fundamental physics quantities to the testing of Monte Carlo simulation setups typical of medical physics applications. Both electromagnetic and hadronic physics processes and models within the prebuilt Geant4 physics lists are tested. The tests included in G4-Med are executed on the CERN computing infrastructure via the use of the geant-val web application, developed at CERN for Geant4 testing. The physical observables can be compared to reference data for benchmarking and to results of previous Geant4 versions for regression testing purposes.
This paper describes the tests included in G4-Med and shows the results derived from the benchmarking of Geant4 10.5 against reference data.
Our results indicate that the Geant4 electromagnetic physics constructor G4EmStandardPhysics_option4 gives a good agreement with the reference data for all the tests. The QGSP_BIC_HP physics list provided an overall adequate description of the physics involved in hadron therapy, including proton and carbon ion therapy. New tests should be included in the next stage of the project to extend the benchmarking to other physical quantities and application scenarios of interest for medical physics.
The results presented and discussed in this paper will aid users in tailoring physics lists to their particular application.
Geant4 是一款广泛应用于医学物理领域的蒙特卡罗代码，适用于剂量学、微观和纳米剂量学、成像、辐射防护和核医学等多种应用。Geant4 在不断发展，因此拥有一个针对医学物理的基准测试和回归测试系统来对比参考数据和执行回归测试至关重要。
为了满足这些需求，我们开发了 G4-Med，这是一个针对医学物理的 Geant4 基准测试和回归测试系统。
G4-Med 当前包含 18 个测试。它们的范围从基本物理量的基准测试到典型的医学物理应用的蒙特卡罗模拟设置的测试。预建的 Geant4 物理列表中的电磁和强相互作用物理过程和模型都经过了测试。G4-Med 中包含的测试是通过使用 CERN 开发的用于 Geant4 测试的 geant-val 网络应用程序在 CERN 计算基础设施上执行的。物理可观测量可以与基准数据进行比较，以进行基准测试，并与以前的 Geant4 版本的结果进行比较，以进行回归测试。
本文描述了 G4-Med 中包含的测试，并展示了从 Geant4 10.5 对参考数据的基准测试中得出的结果。
我们的结果表明，对于所有测试，Geant4 电磁物理构造器 G4EmStandardPhysics_option4 与参考数据吻合良好。QGSP_BIC_HP 物理列表为包括质子和碳离子治疗在内的强子治疗相关物理提供了总体上足够的描述。在下一阶段的项目中，应该包括新的测试，以将基准测试扩展到医学物理感兴趣的其他物理量和应用场景。
本文提出和讨论的结果将帮助用户根据其特定应用来调整物理列表。
