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Time- and space-resolved Monte Carlo study of water radiolysis for photon, electron and ion irradiation

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Abstract

Time-dependent yields of the most important products of water radiolysis \( {\text{e}}_{\rm {aq}}^-\), •OH, H•, H3O+, H2, OH− and H2O2 have been calculated for 60Co-photons, electrons, protons, helium- and carbon-ions incident onto water. G values have been evaluated for the interval from 1 ps to 1 μs after initial energy deposition as a function of time, as well as after 1 ns and at the end of the chemical stage as a function of linear energy transfer (LET), covering an interval from approximately 0.2 up to 750 keV/μm by means of different particle types. In this work, the modules of the biophysical Monte Carlo track structure code PARTRAC dealing with the simulation of prechemical and chemical stages have been improved to extend interaction data sets for heavier ions. Among other newly selected parameter values, the thermalisation distance between the point of generation and hydration of subexcitation electrons has been adopted from recent data in the literature. As far as data from the literature are available, good agreement has been found with the calculated time- and LET-dependent yields in this work, supporting the selection of the revised parameter values.

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Acknowledgments

This work has partially been supported by the EU (RISC-RAD, Contract no. FI6R-CT-2003-508842). This work also contributes to problems dealt within the excellence cluster ‘Munich-Centre for Advanced Photonics’ (MAP).

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  1. Institute of Radiation Protection, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Ingolstädter Landstraße 1, 85764, Neuherberg, Germany

    Maximilian S. Kreipl, Werner Friedland & Herwig G. Paretzke

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  1. Maximilian S. Kreipl
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  2. Werner Friedland
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  3. Herwig G. Paretzke
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Correspondence to Werner Friedland.

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Kreipl, M.S., Friedland, W. & Paretzke, H.G. Time- and space-resolved Monte Carlo study of water radiolysis for photon, electron and ion irradiation. Radiat Environ Biophys 48, 11–20 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-008-0194-8

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