Gas Bremsstrahlung: Monte Carlo simulations and experimental verification

The most recent version of the FLUKA code, which includes a very accurate treatment of bremsstrahlung, has been used to study the bremsstrahlung produced in electron storage rings by interactions with residual gas. On the basis of the results of simulations carried out in fairly ideal conditions, simple equations linking absorbed dose rate and photon density fluence to the various parameters involved have been proposed, in the energy range 100-1000 MeV. Furthermore, the intensity of the gas bremsstrahlung radiation generated by the 1.5 GeV electron beam of the Adone storage ring has been measured in terms of absorbed dose as a function of the angle and of the distance from the target ''vacuum'' pipe. The experiment has been also simulated by the FLUKA code and the predicted results were found in substantial agreement with the measured data. All that provided an indirect confirmation of the formulae suggested and proved the level of accuracy of the FLUKA code to be close to the best level that can be tested by this kind of experiments. (authors). 10 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab