A simulation-based investigation of the production routes of the positron-emitting radionuclide 128Cs using GEANT4, TALYS, and EMPIRE codes for medical applications

Due to its suitable half-life of 3.62 min and positron emission, 128 Cs (I β+ = 61%; E β+ = 2.885 MeV) is a favorable radionuclide for applying in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. In this work, the production 128 Cs radionuclide via the indirect reaction of 133 Cs(p,6n) 128 Ba→ 128 Cs and two new direct reactions of 127 I( 3 He,2n) 128 Cs and 127 Xe(d, n) 128 Cs was predict using the Monte Carlo GEANT4-10.7 toolkit, the Monte Carlo SRIM-2013-Pro code, the EMPIRE-3.2.3 software, and the TALYS-2.0 package. The range and stopping power values of protons, deuterons, and 3 He particles within the 133 Cs, 127 Xe, and 127 I targets were calculated by the GEANT4 and SRIM codes. Moreover, the cross-section of the mentioned reactions was computed utilizing the GEANT4, EMPIRE, TALYS (OMPs, BSFGM, CGCM, and GSM models) codes. To estimate the production yield of the mentioned reactions, the optimum energy range for the 133 Cs(p,6n) 128 Ba→ 128 Cs, 127 I( 3 He,2n) 128 Cs, and 127 Xe(d, n) 128 Cs reactions were selected (48–68 MeV), (5–10 MeV), and (9–20 MeV), respectively. The previous experimental cross-section and production yield of the 133 Cs(p,6n) 128 Ba→ 128 Cs reaction was compared with the present simulated values of the GEANT4, TALYS, and EMPIRE codes. A good compatibility between the experimental data and simulated values was observed. The good agreement between the experimental data and simulated results is a proof that using a combination of nuclear codes like GEANT4, SRIM, TALYS, and EMPIRE for studying the nuclear reactions can be a good method before performing them practically.