Precise determination of the Bragg peak position of proton beams in liquid water

The influence of water molecules on the surrounding biological molecules during irradiation with protons is currently a major subject in radiation science. Proton collisions with the water molecules are estimated around the Bragg peak region, taking into account ionization, excitation, charge-changing processes, and energetic secondary electron behavior. The Bragg peak profile and position was determined by adopting a new approach involving discretization, incrementation, and dividing the target into layers, the thickness of each layer being selected randomly from a distribution weighted by the values of the total interaction cross section, from excitation up to ionization of the target and the incident projectile charge exchange. The calculation was carried out by a Monte-Carlo simulation in the energy range 20 ≤ E ≤ 108 eV, including the relativistic corrections.