Computer simulation of electron scavenging in multipair spurs in dielectric liquids

Abstract

A Monte Carlo simulation was applied to model the electron scavenging processes in radiation-induced spurs in low-mobility liquid hydrocarbons. The scavenging probabilities were calculated for spurs containing from one to ten electron-cation pairs, for different initial cation–cation and cation–anion distances, in a range of the scavenger concentration from 10−4 mol/dm3 to 10−1 mol/dm3. It was found that the scavenging probability decreases as the number of pairs in the spur grows. For two-pair spurs the scavenging probability is lower by about 20%–30% as compared with the single-pair value, for small cation–cation distances, for five- and ten-pair spurs, a decrease of about 50%–60% and 60%–70%, respectively, is found. The Laplace transform technique, which converts the recombination kinetics in the absence of scavenger into the scavenging probability, is found to work reasonably well also in the multipair case. A simplified model of the fast electron track is applied to calculate the track-averaged values of the scavenging probability.