A Monte Carlo analysis of possible cell dose enhancement effects by uranium microparticles in photon fields |
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Authors: | Eakins J S Jansen J Th M Tanner R J |
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Affiliation: | Health Protection Agency, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0RQ, UK. jonathan.eakins@hpa.org.uk |
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Abstract: | Uranium microparticles (radii: 50 nm-1.25 μm) were modelled surrounded by tissue and exposed to natural background radiation, in order to investigate potential dose enhancements from photon interactions. Generally, the results depended on the microparticle size. For a 0.5 μm radius microparticle in an isotropic field, it was found that the combined photon/electron doses deposited in 1 and 10 μm radii shells around it were raised by factors of ~3.8 and ~1.1, respectively; for a typical background photon fluence rate, these would correspond to increased energy depositions of a few 10s and a few 100s of eV y(-1), which are far less than the likely deposition rate resulting from the radioactive decay of a (238)U microparticle. The health hazard from uranium microparticle interactions with background photons was concluded to be negligible. |
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