A Monte Carlo Study of Low-Energy Electron Transport in Liquid Water: Influence of the Rutherford Formula and the Mott Model

Influence of the Rutherford formula and the Mott model on the Monte Carlo simulation of low-energy electron (<10 keV) transport in liquid water is investigated. One of the features of the constructed Monte Carlo code is the implementation of the new optical-data model from Emfietzoglou et al. in inelastic cross section based on the dielectric response theory. In addition, a novel mean elastic cross section by means of the Mott model is proposed to calculate the electron elastic scattering for high simulation efficiency. The systematical calculations of both the distribution of energy depositions and penetration parameter for low-energy electrons in liquid water are performed by using the Rutherford formula and the Mott model, respectively, for the elastic collisions in the simulations. The calculated results show that the effect of the two models is evident at energies below about 1 keV.