Dose mapping using multipole moments

Conventional dose distribution study for gamma irradiation facility involves the use of isodose maps. The establishment of these maps requires the measurement of the absorbed dose in many points, which makes the task expensive experimentally and very long by simulation. However, a lack of points of measurement can distort the dose distribution cartography. To overcome these problems, we present in this paper a mathematical method to describe the dose distribution in air. This method is based on the multipole expansion in spherical harmonics of the photon flux emitted by the gamma source. The determination of the multipole coefficients of this development allows the modeling of the radiation field around the gamma source. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.