Hadron therapy is one of the fastly developing treatments against cancer. Today there are about hundred hadron therapy centers all around the world. Thanks to the state-of-the-art high-energy physics (HEP) technologies it is quite possible, that the number of these sites will be increased in the next decade. These would help to the society to have easy availability of this novel and precise medical treatment option in our everday life.

One of the most-widely applied method of hadron therapy happens by applying proton beams. To increase the success of the treatments today, there are two main directions: (i) using more heavier ions and (ii) improve the treatment (dose) planning efficeincy by hadron-based computed tomography (CT) methods. Proton CT imaging technology therefore is a new and hot topic.

Nowadays proton Computed Tomography (pCT) images are usually reconstructed based on different versions of the Diagonally Relaxed Ortogonal Projection (DROP) method. One example for a state of art image reconstruction is the Total Variation Supervized DROP (TVS-DROP) algorithm, which is was developed by Penfoldet and collaborators. These methods are fixed point iterations, which works for pCT image reconstruction, but not related to the probability theory behind the image reconstruction. The goal of this PhD topic is to develop image reconstruction algorithms, which gain the information from the probability theory behind imaging. The main direction is to construct and optimize a statistically based image reconstruction techniques for proton computed tomography in general, and specificly for the Bergen pCT collaboration.

The PhD topic is strongly connected to the R&D activities of the Hungarian ALICE Group and the Bergen pCT collaboration. Candidate can be involved both activities, but the main direction is to apply HEP technologies in medical treatments and develop imaging techologies for hadron computer tomography.

The planned work is supported by an NKFIH OTKA grants, by the Bergen pCT collaboration, and the Wigner Scientific Computational Laboratory as member of the TOP50 National Excellence Centers
For background information and Bergen pCT papers: http://alice.wigner.hu
Further information: https://www.uib.no/en/ift/142356/medical-physics-bergen-pct-project