An experimental study of the statistical fluctuations of an ionization chamber current

An experimental study of the statistical fluctuations of the current of an ionization chamber has been made. In order to obtain the required statistical precision, series of up to 300 measurements were used. The dependence of the variance of the ionization current on the main parameters involved appears to have a structure similar to the one known from shot noise, but it leads to a much larger value for the variance. (orig.)