Nuclear fragmentation reaction cross sections for hadrontherapy and radioprotection: the FOOT experiment

The characterization of nuclear fragmentation reactions of light nuclei (A < 20) in the 100-800 MeV/u energy range is of great interest in applied physics research. As a matter of fact, a complete understanding of such interactions would lead to improvements in both Hadrontherapy treatment planning and in risk-assessment for radiation exposure in long-term human Space missions. However, nuclear reaction databases lack the experimental measurements needed to accurately model fragmentation. A phenomenological description of such processes is inherently subject to significant uncertainties, which could become too large for an evaluation of risks related to radiation exposure. The aim of the FOOT experiment is to improve the knowledge on nuclear fragmentation by performing a set of high accuracy cross section measurements. The experiment foresees an extensive program of data acquisition campaigns with light ion beams ( 4He, 12C and 16O) at 200-800 MeV/u impinging on targets with chemical composition representative of human tissues. The final goal is the measurement of double differential cross sections in kinetic energy and emission angle with a maximum 5% and 10% uncertainty for projectile and target fragmentation, respectively. FOOT will employ two complementary setups capable of measuring the kinematic characteristics of primary ions and secondary fragments: an Emulsion Cloud Chamber, focused on light fragments (Z ≤ 3), and a setup composed of electronic sub-detectors, optimized for heavier ions (3 ≤ Z ≤ 8). In this thesis, the development and implementation of particle tracking and full event reconstruction in the electronic setup is shown. Extensive studies on Monte Carlo simulated experimental setups were carried out to accurately characterize the tracking performance of the setup in terms of efficiency and resolution for momentum and angular measurements. Moreover, the first full test of the reconstruction and analysis chain is described, showing the capabilities of FOOT for cross section evaluation.