Electron transport using the macro Monte Carlo method for medical physics applications

Journal Article · Mon Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1997 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:552577

Gierga, D P; Adams, K J ^[1]; Ballinger, C T ^[2]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
2. Albany Medical College, NY (United States)

Electron transport Monte Carlo calculations are notoriously time consuming. Electrons undergo a tremendous number of collisions, each of relatively little consequence. Macro Monte Carlo (MMC) is one way of reducing the computational burden of traditional condensed-history electron transport. The essential idea is to define a volume of physical space, or {open_quotes}kugel,{close_quotes} transport particles through this volume, and tally the particles exiting the volume. This process, performed over many incident energies, can be viewed as a series of local calculations. These tallies are post-processed to construct a library. This library is then used in a new algorithm to transport the particles in a global sense, where the electrons take large-scale, macroscopic kugel steps through the material. The computational acceleration results from the fact that within the kugel there are many interactions that are essentially averaged to produce a net effect. Thus, one macro kugel step is equivalent to many electron steps. This is similar to standard condensed-history algorithms, differing primarily in the way the distributions are constructed.

• OSTI ID: 552577
• Report Number(s): CONF-971125--
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 77; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
ALGORITHMS
CALCULATION METHODS
COLLISIONS
ELECTRON TRANSFER
M CODES
MONTE CARLO METHOD
RADIATION TRANSPORT