Gamma-rays interaction study on calcite and quartz: Theoretical calculation

Abstract

Calcite and quartz gemstones samples were chosen in this paper for theoretical calculation on gamma rays interaction. The mass attenuation coefficient has been calculated by WinXCom program at energy range 1 keV – 100 GeV. The result show that, the mass attenuation coefficient of calcite and quartz samples depend on photon energy and decreases with increasing of the photon energy. Moreover, both samples shows discontinuities in the lower energy range which corresponds to photoelectric absorption edges of the Z elements. The partial interactions and the effective atomic number have been measured and it was found that the effective atomic number of calcite is higher than quartz. It was found that, the photoelectric interaction of both gemstone shows similar trend as that of coherent scattering at lower energy further it shows incoherent interaction in the energy range 80 – 10000 keV for calcite and 40 – 20000 keV for quartz. The similar trend was reflected in the pair production arising from nuclear and electron field in these gemstones.