Study of intensity suppression in a gantry beamline for SC200 proton therapy system ZengXianhu ZhengJinxing SongYuntao WangMing LiMing HanManfen 2019 <p>For proton therapy, a beam intensity of 0.4 nA to 4 nA is typically used with a beam transmission factor of 10. However, because of energy degrading, emittance matching, and energy spread selecting, the ratio of beamline transmission (<i>I</i><sub>Max</sub><i>/I</i><sub>Min</sub>) for our SC200 proton therapy facility (200 MeV/500 nA) should be far more than 10. Therefore, a novel intensity suppression scheme, based on the installation of two new collimators placed symmetrically with respect to the gantry coupling point, is proposed and verified. First, the feasibility of delivering a beam with variable size at the gantry isocenter is demonstrated. The beam delivery method uses waist-to-waist imaging optics, a symmetric beam method, and the principle of beam line inversion. The relationship between energy and isocenter beam size (in air) is then verified using an empirical formula and a Monte Carlo method. The intensity suppression and subsequent optimization of the gantry beam optics were accomplished through simulations. The results indicate that increases in the entrance beam radius at a specific collimator results in significant changes in the beam optics and intensity behind the collimator. This passive scheme, which produces intentional losses at the gantry coupling point, is demonstrated to be viable.</p>