Applied Physics 191

Current Trends and Topics in Radiation Dosimetry and Radiation Therapy

2nd Semester A.Y. 2017 – 2018
1st Problem Set
Show your COMPLETE solution.
Submission Deadline: February 10, 2018 (Saturday) class hours
1. An x-ray field at a point P contains 7.5 × 108 photons/m2-sec-keV, uniformly distributed from
10 to 100 keV.
(a) What is the photon flux density at P?
(b) What would be the photon fluence in one hour?
(c) What is the corresponding energy fluence, in J/m2 and erg/cm2?
2. In problem # 1, assuming that the medium at P is aluminium.
(a) Calculate the collision kerma there for the one-hour irradiation, in Gy.
(b) Calculate the exposure there, in C/kg. (Note: You may use linear interpolation in
Appendix D.3 of Attix)
3. An electron enters a volume V with a kinetic energy of 4 MeV, and carries 0.5 MeV of that
energy out of V when it leaves. While in the volume, it produces a bremsstrahlung x-ray of 1.5
MeV which escapes from V. What is the contribution of this event to:
(a) The energy transferred?
(b) The net energy transferred?
(c) The energy imparted?
(d) Draw/illustrate the interactions
EXPLAIN your answer thoroughly using the expression of each stochastic quantity.
4. A 10-MeV γ-rays enters a volume V and undergoes pair production, thereby disappearing and
giving rise to an electron and positron of equal energies. The electron spends half its kinetic
energy in collision interactions before escaping from V. The positron spends half of its kinetic
energy in collisions in V before being annihilated in flight. The resulting photon escape from V.
Determine (a), (b), (c), and (d) as in problem # 3.
5. The flux density of 6-MeV γ-rays is 3.4 × 106 /𝑐𝑚2 𝑠 at a point in Pb. What are the values of
K and KC there after one week? (Express in units of erg/g, rad, and gray).
6. A boundary region between carbon and aluminium media is traversed by a fluence of 4.10 ×
1011 e/cm2 at an energy of 12.5 MeV. Ignoring δ-rays and scattering, what is the absorbed dose
Dc in the carbon adjacent to the boundary, and what is the dose ratio DAl/DC?
7. A small air-filled cavity ion chamber has copper walls with thickness equal to the maximum
electron range. The cavity volume is 0.100 cm3, the air density is 0.001293 g/cm3, and a given γ-
ray exposure generates a charge (either sign) of 7.00 × 10-10 C.
 (a) What is the average absorbed dose in the cavity air?
(b) Apply B-G theory to estimate the absorbed dose in the adjacent copper wall,
assuming a mean energy 𝑇̅ = 0.43 𝑀𝑒𝑉 for the cavity-crossing electrons.
(c) Suppose 𝑇̅ is 34% in error and should have the value 0.65 MeV. Redo part (b). What
was the resulting percentage error in DCu?
8. Essay
(a) Explain charged-particle equilibrium. What is the importance of relating the absorbed
dose with the collisional KERMA?
(b) What are the assumptions of Bragg-Gray cavity theory? Explain the importance of
each.