TOF-PET Image Reconstruction With Multiple Timing Kernels Applied on Cherenkov Radiation in BGO

Today Time-of-Flight (TOF), in PET scanners, assumes a single, well-defined timing resolution for all events. However, recent BGO-Cherenkov detectors, combining prompt Cherenkov emission and the typical BGO scintillation, can sort events into multiple kernels, best described by Gaussian mixture models. The number of photons detected per event impacts directly detector time signal rise time, which later be used to improve coincidence resolution. This work presents simulation toolkit applies spreads on coincident an image reconstruction that incorporates this information. A full cylindrical model was compared, terms contrast recovery contrast-to-noise ratio, against LYSO with 213 ps. Two approaches kernels were tested: 1) 2) decomposed simple kernels. exact component applied during simulation. Images reconstructed using provided similar mean value less noise than decomposed. typically, more iterations needed. Similarly, model, single TOF kernel, converged faster results indicate complexity slows down convergence. due higher sensitivity, ratio 26.4% better model.