Dosimetric Classification of Mixed Beams of Cosmic Ray Heavy Nuclei in Space.
Abstract
Heavy nuclei of the primary galactic radiation in space can have the same Linear Energy Transfer (LET) yet greatly different energy distribution patterns in the microstructure of tissue. Therefore, the LET distribution as it is commonly used for dosimetric classification of mixed beams of conventional nuclear radiations is inadequate for heavy particles. The study proposes to replace, for heavy particles, the LET distribution by the energy density (ED) distribution. The formalism for establishing the ED distribution is derived and the distributions by volume and energy are presented for two complementary mixed beams of Z = 26 particles with energy spectra from zero to 70 and from 70 to 760 Mev/nucleon. It is shown that both types discriminate well the two different energy spectra. Which type would reflect more accurately the differences in biological effectiveness can only be decided by comparative experiments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 15, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA034205
Entities
People
- Hermann J. Schaefer
Organizations
- University of West Florida