Comparing natural and laboratory irradiations: A simulation approach

Abstract Autzen et al. (2018) observed a decrease in quartz luminescence at very high doses (several MGy) and hypothesised that this decrease was linked to a reduction in the trapped hole population as a result of their silt-sized grains (50 μm diameter) retaining excess electrons during irradiation. In this paper, we expand on simulations of Autzen et al. (2017) [1] to cover both natural and laboratory irradiations and for the first time couple the output of a radiation transport model (Geant4) directly to a luminescence production model (Bailey, 2001) [2] to predict the effects of charge imbalance on luminescence dosimetry measurements. We also investigate the difference in ionisation rate (i.e number of electron-hole pairs generated per unit dose) for different irradiations geometries and types and the implications that this may have on dose estimation using luminescence dosimetry.