Ant colony method to control variance reduction techniques in the Monte Carlo simulation of clinical electron linear accelerators of use in cancer therapy

  • Authors:

  • S. García-Pareja;M. Vilches;A. M. Lallena

  • Affiliations:

  • Servicio de Radiofísica Hospitalaría, Hospital Regional Universitario "Carlos Haya", Avda. Carlos Haya, s/n, E-29010 Málaga, Spain;Servicio de Física y Protección Radiológica, Hospital Regional Universitario "Virgen de las Nieves", Avda. de las Fuerzas Armadas, 2, E-18014 Granada, Spain;Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear, Universidad de Granada, E-18071 Granada, Spain

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

The Monte Carlo simulation of clinical electron linear accelerators requires large computation times to achieve the level of uncertainty required for radiotherapy. In this context, variance reduction techniques play a fundamental role in the reduction of this computational time. Here we describe the use of the ant colony method to control the application of two variance reduction techniques: Splitting and Russian roulette. The approach can be applied to any accelerator in a straightforward way and permits the increasing of the efficiency of the simulation by a factor larger than 50.