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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Y. Namito, S. Ban, H. Hirayama
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 120 | Number 3 | July 1995 | Pages 199-210
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE95-A24119
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effects of including linear polarization and Doppler broadening of the Compton-scattered photon energy, i.e., the Compton profile, in a calculation of the exposure buildup factors for plane normal gamma-ray sources are investigated by using an improved electron gamma shower Monte Carlo code, EGS4, for water, iron, and lead in the 40- to 250-keV range for penetration depths of up to 16 mean free paths (mfp). The effects of including the bound Compton total cross section (&sigmabC) and the bound Compton-scattered photon angular distribution by using the incoherent-scattering function [S(x, Z)] were also evaluated. The “pseudo” exposure buildup factors were calculated to determine these effects combined with the effects of Rayleigh and/or Compton scattering. The pseudo exposure buildup factor increases at points farther than a few mfp’s and decreases in the neighborhood of the source upon including linear polarization. It decreases upon including Doppler broadening. The degree of each effect varies with the atomic number of the material. The effect of linear polarization is large for materials of small atomic number; that of the Doppler broadening is large for materials of medium and large atomic number.