Study of low-energy photon interactions below 1 keV for some biological molecules of human body

Abstract

In the present work, the authors have studied the radiation interactions at very low photon energies (below 1 keV) for some materials of biological importance, viz. water, glycerol, adenine, guanine, palmitic acid, myristic acid, valine, tryptophan, histidine, glucose and ribose. The parameters including mass attenuation coefficient, mean free path, half value layer, tenth value layer, effective atomic number, mass energy absorption coefficient, gamma constant and dose rate have been investigated in the energy range from 100 to 1000 eV. MCNP6.1 simulations have been employed in this study. Water was found to have higher values of mass attenuation coefficient and effective atomic number among the other materials, whereas palmitic acid possesses relatively lower values except for the energy region wherein abrupt changes occur near the K edge absorption energies. The values of mean free path, half value layer and tenth value layer were observed to be close to hair-like thickness or a thickness of few cell layers. Exposure to such low-energy photons can be very damaging to the skin cells and even the DNA. Such study will prove to be very useful for radiological applications.