The range of proton in water dose not reproduce the value given by ICRU, when I use the G4hLowEnergyIonisation with the setting of ChemicalFormula of a water to "H_2O". (G4hIonisation also does not reproduce the ICRU value, but I don't know the reason.) I adopted G4hLowEnergyIonisation for 200MeV protons, and measured a range in water without any processes such as elastic/inelastic/multiple scattering for protons. Without the setting of ChemicalFormula of water to "H_2O", the Geant4 can reproduce the ICRU value. But, with the setting of a ChemicalFormula of water to "H_2O", the range become shorter than the ICRU value. The reason of this problem is thought to be a illegal collection factor to the dE/dX calculation in G4hLowEnergyIonisation (paramB). In the G4hParametrisedLossModel, the calculation method of dE/dX at the kinetic energy below 2MeV is switched according to the setting of ChemicalFormula. Then the collection factor (paramB in G4hLowEnergyIonisation) is applied for the dE/dX at higher kinetic energy region which is calculated from BetheBloch formula. The factor is used for the smooth connection of dE/dX value at 2MeV. Without the setting of ChemicalFormula, the collection factor is just about a few percent. But with the setting of ChmicalFormula, the collection factor is about 10%. This illeagal large collection factor makes energy loss of the protons larger. As a result the range in water becomes shorter than the expected. The smooth connection with small collection factor at 2MeV has to be considered. Otherwise, at least, we can not reproduce the proton energy loss in water. One of the solution is to replace the dE/dX caluculation with non- ChemicalFormula case at the energy range of 0.8MeV to 2MeV. This can make a smooth connection of dE/dX at 2MeV with small correction factor. The result of my study is provided on the attached URL. Best regards, Toyama College of Maritime Technology. T.Aso
The problem report is reassigned to the Geant4 developer author of G4hLowEnergyIonisation. Best regards, Maria Grazia Pia
Problem is exist. The source of it is that ICRU parameterization is availbale below 1 MeV, Bethe-Block formula is accurate above 8-10 MeV. The solution will be to use updated parameterization on which we are working currently.