Gamma ray cross section

A gamma ray cross section is a measure of the probability that a gamma ray interacts with matter. The total cross section of gamma ray interactions is composed of several independent processes: photoelectric effect, Compton (incoherent) scattering, electron–positron pair production in the nucleus field and electron–positron pair production in the electron field (triplet production). The cross section for single process listed above is a part of the total gamma ray cross section.

Other effects, like the photonuclear absorption, Thomson or Rayleigh (coherent) scattering can be omitted because of their nonsignificant contribution in the gamma ray range of energies.

The detailed equations for cross sections (barn/atom) of all mentioned effects connected with gamma ray interaction with matter are listed below.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.