Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2017) 132: 484
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2017-11779-x

Regular Article

Compressive effect of the magnetic field on the positron range in commonly used positron emitters simulated using Geant4

¹ Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100039, Beijing, China

^* e-mail: caoxzh@ihep.ac.cn

Received: 9 May 2017
Accepted: 19 October 2017
Published online: 24 November 2017

Abstract

The compressive effect of a magnetic field on the positron range from commonly used positron emitters in PET (Positron Emission Tomography) was simulated using the Geant4 toolkit with H₂O as the environmental material. The compression of the positron range, which was different in the directions parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field, showed finite final variation of relative change rate versus the magnetic field. The variation greatly depended on the positron-emission energy spectrum in the same medium. Furthermore, the volume of the positron annihilation point was dramatically compressed as the magnetic field was set in the range of 3-6T. It was more prominent for ⁸²Rb , which is generally used as a positron source in PET technology.