How Does the Soil Chemical Composition Affect Its Cross-sections, Effective Atomic Number and Electron Density? Computer Simulation Analysis to Highlight the Radiation-soil Interaction Processes

The study of radiation interaction parameters in complex materials (e.g., soils) has gained great importance in the last decades. However, few studies have directly addressed in detail how the radiation interaction is affected by the chemical and physical characteristics of soils, especially in tropical and subtropical climate regions like Brazil. The soil is an important material widely utilized in agriculture and engineering. Knowing this material radiation interaction properties is fundamental to understand its role in different areas of applied sciences such as radiation shielding, environmental monitoring, and geological characterization. This study presents a detailed analysis of how parameters like the atomic (sigma(A)), molecular (sigma(M)), and electronic (sigma(E)) cross-sections are affected by the texture and chemical composition of soils. The effective atomic number (Z(eff)) and electron density (N-el) were also investigated. Photon energies in the energy range from 10 to 1330keV were selected. The XCOM computer code was chosen to simulate the radiation interaction parameters. Five soils presenting different physical characteristics and oxide compositions were studied. The results show a strong dependence of the radiation interaction parameters on the elemental composition up to 100keV. After this photon energy, factors such as fractional abundance, for example, become important to discriminate the soils. The parameters sigma(A), sigma(E), and Z(eff) followed the same trend as that of the percentage of the oxides Fe2O3 and TiO2 among soils, while sigma(M) and N-el matched the oxides SiO2 and Al2O3. Our results highlight that understanding how the chemical composition influences the radiation interaction in complex materials provides information that can be useful in areas such as radiation shielding and image analysis and processing, which are based on radiation interaction data.

Automated summary

The study focuses on the radiation interaction parameters in complex materials like soils, emphasizing the importance of understanding how the chemical composition affects the radiation interaction. The results suggest a strong dependence of radiation interaction parameters on elemental composition up to 100keV, with factors such as fractional abundance becoming important at higher photon energies. The study highlights the significance of understanding chemical composition in influencing radiation interaction in complex materials for applications in radiation shielding and image analysis.