Photonuclear dose calculations for high‐energy photon beams from Siemens and Varian linacs

The dose from photon-induced nuclear particles (neutrons, protons, and alpha particles) generated by high-energy photon beams from medical linacs is investigated. Monte Carlo calculations using the MCNPX code are performed for three different photon beams from two different machines: Siemens 18 MV, Varian 15 MV, and Varian 18 MV. The linac head components are simulated in detail. The dose distributions from photons, neutrons, protons, and alpha...