The response history Monte Carlo method for electron transport

Journal Article · Tue Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Nuclear Science and Engineering; (United States)

OSTI ID:6742760

Ballinger, C T ^[1]; Rathkopf, J A ^[2]; Martin, W R ^[3]

---

1. Knolls Atomic Power Lab., Schenectady, NY (United States)
2. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
3. Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

In this paper, a new method, response history Monte Carlo (RHMC), is developed for solving electron transport problems through homogeneous material, and it is more accurate than the conventional method for energies below a few hundred kilo-electron-volts. Since electrons can suffer thousands of collisions and lose only a fraction of their incident energy, analog Monte Carlo (single scatter) is extremely time-consuming. The conventional electron transport method avoids simulating single scattering events by modeling the effect of multiple collisions. This condensed history method requires assumptions that are invalid at lower energies to analytically determine probability distribution functions (pdf's) representing the electron state after multiple collisions. Like the condensed history method, the RHMC method uses an approximate random walk where each step represents the cumulative effect of many collisions. However, the RHMC method is more accurate than the condensed history method since the multiscattered electron state is sampled from pdf's predetermined by analog Monte Carlo calculations instead of approximate analytic solutions.

• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 6742760
• Journal Information: Nuclear Science and Engineering; (United States), Journal Name: Nuclear Science and Engineering; (United States) Vol. 112:4; ISSN NSENAO; ISSN 0029-5639
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700330* -- Plasma Kinetics
Transport
& Impurities-- (1992-)
ACCURACY
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
CALCULATION METHODS
COLLISIONS
DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
ELECTRONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ENERGY LOSSES
FERMIONS
FUNCTIONS
LEPTONS
LOSSES
MONTE CARLO METHOD
MULTIPLE SCATTERING
PROBABILITY
SCATTERING
SIMULATION
TRANSPORT THEORY