Modeling of the TTV03 time-of-flight positron emission tomograph

A recently developed PET (positron emission tomography) scanner model is used to simulate certain aspects of the TTV03 CEA-LETI TOF (time-of-flight) PET scanner. The model incorporates all physical processes that affect the performance of the scanner both at the individual γ-ray detector level and at the scanner level. Using this model it is found that the TOF resolution for a pair of detectors is 400 ps (FWHM) as compared to 750 ps measured with the TTV03 LETI scanner. The true, random, and noise effective count rates are calculated as functions of the lower energy threshold, and good agreement with experimental measurements is found