Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-particle-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/4/c/solution
Past exam of the particle physics course of the University of Oxford 2017 4 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
At low charged-lepton energy, collisional ionization and excitation dominate over radiation. A slowing Positron also eventually annihilates, usually yielding photons. Low-energy photons lose energy through Compton scattering and, at sufficiently low energy, photoelectric absorption; pair production is kinematically unavailable below its threshold.
The electron critical energy is the energy where mean bremsstrahlung and collisional losses are equal. With and a slowly varying collisional loss,Above this energy, radiation and pair creation multiply shower particles efficiently. Below it, charged particles mainly deposit their energy by collisions and the shower dies out. Critical energy is material dependent; it is not a new photon-production threshold.
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