FOOT Experiment

Hadrontherapy is a cancer treatment that exploits the irradiation with light charged particles: its main advantage is the depth-dose profile peaked in a narrow region inside the patient body. Up to now the main open problem of hadrontherapy is the nuclear fragmentation between the beam and the human body, which is not fully understood. The main goal of FOOT (FragmentatiOn Of Target) is the measurements of the differential cross section of the fragments produced in the nuclear interaction between beam and human body. The nuclear fragmentation cross sections are of crucial importance also to evaluate the astronauts dose exposure in far from Earth missions and to design proper shielding systems.

Collaborations

The project involves 101 members working in the following facilities:

• 10 INFN Sections
• 5 laboratories: Frascati, CNAO, Trento, GSI, IPHC (Strasbourg)
• 12 Italian Universities
• 2 foreign Universities: Aachen, Nagoya
• Centro Fermi