Exploratory energy deposition studies in the superconducting dipole magnet of the carbon-ion gantry for the National Center for Oncological Hadrontherapy

In the context of the HITRI project and EuroSIG international collaboration, a carbon-ion gantry is being designed for possible installation at the National Center for Oncological Hadrontherapy (CNAO), Pavia, Italy. The design is based on superconducting (SC) magnet technology for the dipoles, in order to reduce gantry dimensions and weight. Unlike normal-conducting magnets, SC magnets are sensitive to local beam losses, which can lead to local energy deposition and potential quenches, thus inducing considerable gantry downtime. This contribution presents exploratory studies of energy deposition in the SC dipole magnets currently foreseen for the gantry. The studies are carried out by means of Monte Carlo simulations, using the code to characterize ruling factors such as beam spot size and impact angle. In this exploratory phase, simulations were carried out assuming simplified beam impact conditions.