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Subsections

# Ionization

## Method

The class provides the continuous and discrete energy losses of electrons and positrons due to ionization in a material according to the approach described in Section 7.1. The value of the maximum energy transferable to a free electron is given by the following relation:

 (8.1)

where is the electron mass. Above a given threshold energy the energy loss is simulated by the explicit production of delta rays by Möller scattering (), or Bhabha scattering (). Below the threshold the soft electrons ejected are simulated as continuous energy loss by the incident .

## Continuous Energy Loss

The integration of 7.1 leads to the Berger-Seltzer formula [1]:

 (8.2)

with

In an elemental material the electron density is

is Avogadro's number, is the material density, and is the mass of a mole. In a compound material

where is the proportion by mass of the element, with molar mass .

The mean excitation energies for all elements are taken from [2].

The functions are given by :

 (8.3)

 (8.4)

where .

The density effect correction is calculated according to the formalism of Sternheimer [3]:
is a kinetic variable of the particle : ,
and is defined by

 (8.5)

where the matter-dependent constants are calculated as follows:
 (8.6)

For condensed media

and for gaseous media

## Total Cross Section per Atom and Mean Free Path

The total cross section per atom for Möller scattering () and Bhabha scattering () is obtained by integrating Eq. 7.2. In GEANT4 is always 1 keV or larger. For delta ray energies much larger than the excitation energy of the material (), the total cross section becomes [1] for Möller scattering,

 (8.7)

and for Bhabha scattering (),
 (8.8)

Here

The above formulae give the total cross section for scattering above the threshold energies

 (8.9)

In a given material the mean free path is then

 (8.10)

## Simulation of Delta-ray Production

### Differential Cross Section

For the differential cross section per atom becomes [1] for Möller scattering,

 (8.11)

and for Bhabha scattering,
 (8.12)

Here . The kinematical limits of are

### Sampling

The delta ray energy is sampled according to methods discussed in Chapter 2. Apart from normalization, the cross section can be factorized as
 (8.13)

For scattering
 (8.14) (8.15)

and for scattering
 (8.16) (8.17)

Here and all other quantities have been defined above.

To choose , and hence the delta ray energy,

1. is sampled from
2. the rejection function is calculated using the sampled value of
3. is accepted with probability .
After the successful sampling of , the direction of the ejected electron is generated with respect to the direction of the incident particle. The azimuthal angle is generated isotropically and the polar angle is calculated from energy-momentum conservation. This information is used to calculate the energy and momentum of both the scattered incident particle and the ejected electron, and to transform them to the global coordinate system.

## Status of this document

9.10.98 created by L. Urbán.
29.07.01 revised by M.Maire.
13.12.01 minor cosmetic by M.Maire.
24.05.02 re-written by D.H. Wright.
01.12.03 revised by V. Ivanchenko.

## Bibliography

1. H.Messel and D.F.Crawford. Pergamon Press,Oxford,1970.
2. ICRU Report No. 37 (1984)
3. R.M.Sternheimer. Phys.Rev. B3 (1971) 3681.

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