Measurement of energy deposition near high energy, heavy ion tracks. Progress report, December 1982-April 1985

Abstract

The microscopic spatial distribution of energy deposition in irradiated tissue plays a significant role in the final biological effect produced. Therefore, it is important to have accurate microdosimetric spectra of radiation fields used for radiobiology and radiotherapy. The experiments desribed here were designed to measure the distributions of energy deposition around high energy heavy ion tracks generated at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory's Bevalac Biomedical Facility. A small proportional counter mounted in a large (0.6 by 2.5 m) vacuum chamber was used to measure energy deposition distributions as a function of the distance between detector and primary ion track. The microdosimetric distributions for a homogeneous radiation field were then calculated by integrating over radial distance. This thesis discusses the rationale of the experimental design and the analysis of measurements on 600 MeV/amu iron tracks. 53 refs., 19 figs.