Energy deposited by high energy electrons in matter

[RichardOsmond]

Hello all,
i am trying to calculate the energy deposited by high energy electrons traveling through Silicon. I am dealing with energies in the range of 10^6 - 10^12 eV. I have read that radiative losses will dominate at higher energies and the critical energy where ionization loss = radiative loss is ~ 40 MeV for silicon. Can someone please direct me to the equations i can use to calculate both ionization and radiative losses for high energy electrons? Thanks.

Rich.

 

[Bob S]

See Section 27.4.2 in

http://pdg.lbl.gov/2009/reviews/rpp2009-rev-passage-particles-matter.pdf

In Fig 27.10, the Moller and Bhabba cross sections remain the same (per elecron per gram/cm²) for silicon, but the bremstrahlung cross section has to be scaled down by Z². dE/dx ionization is scattering on atomic electrons and bremsstrahlung is scattering on nuclei.

Also look at GEANT4 (high energy physics applications) in

http://geant4.web.cern.ch/geant4/

Bob S

 

[RichardOsmond]

Thanks Bob,
I have read that dE/dX from radiative energy losses for electrons can be approximated as E/Xo, where E is the energy of the electron and Xo is the radiation length in the material. Is this approximation valid at very high energies? i.e. 10^7 MeV - 10^10 MeV.

Thanks.