Comparison of the bremsstrahlung absolute probability densities produced by experiment and PENELOPE for low-energy (keV) electrons incident on solid silver

There has been some recent controversy concerning whether or not polarizational bremsstrahlung (sometimes referred to as atomic bremsstrahlung') contributes to the total bremsstrahlung spectrum in experiments involving electrons incident on solid targets. We have compared the bremsstrahlung absolute probability density predictions of the widely used Monte Carlo code, PENELOPE, to the results of experiments involving 17.5-keV and 20-keV electrons incident on a thick silver target. Comparisons of the results of our experiments to the predictions of the PENELOPE code, which is based on ordinary bremsstrahlung alone, suggest that there were no significant polarizational bremsstrahlung contributions to the total bremsstrahlung spectra in our experiments. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.