Accuracy of three-dimensional proton imaging of an inertial confinement fusion target assessed by Geant4 simulation

International audience•Proton micro-tomography experiments have been simulated using Geant4.•Geant4 gives access to information that is not possible to get from experiments.•A phantom of inertial confinement fusion target was constructed.•Accuracy of mass density images reconstructed by different methods was assessed.•Accuracy of the corrections implemented for X-ray attenuation was evaluated. The Geant4 toolkit was used to perform benchmark Monte Carlo simulations of proton micro-tomography imaging. A phantom of an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) target was designed, based on experimental data. Simulations of STIM (Scanning Transmission Ion Microscopy) and PIXE (Particle Induced X-ray Emission) tomography were performed. Quantitative images were obtained from the TomoRebuild and JPIXET software packages, chosen for their ability to handle large solid angles of X-ray detection. The tomographic images were compared with the original phantom, used as a reference. For STIM-T, the accuracy of the calculated mass density was ≤ 2 % for TomoRebuild and ≤ 14 % for JPIXET. Corrections of X-ray production cross section and X-ray absorption were tested for the quantification of Ge, used as a dopant in the ICF target. The accuracy on the obtained Ge density was ≤ 2.9 % for TomoRebuild and ≤ 6.4 % for JPIXET, whereas the error was about 40 % without correction