Radial distribution of electron spectra from high-energy ions

The average track model describes the response of physical and biological systems using radial dose distribution as the key physical descriptor. We report on an extension of this model to describe the average distribution of electron spectra as a function of radial distance from an ion. We present calculations of these spectra for ions of identical linear energy transfer (LET), but dissimilar charge and velocity to evaluate the differences in electron spectra from these ions. To illustrate the usefulness of the radial electron spectra for describing effects that are not described by electron dose, we consider the evaluation of the indirect events in microdosimetric distributions for ions. We show that folding our average electron spectra model with experimentally determined frequency distributions for photons or electrons provides a good representation of radial event spectra from high-energy ions in 0.5-2 mu m sites.