title: Relation between absorbed dose, charged particle equilibrium and nuclear transformations: a non-equilibrium thermodynamics point of view.
abstract: We present a discussion to show that the absorbed dose D is a time-dependent function. This time dependence is demonstrated based on the concepts of charged particle equilibrium and on radiation equilibrium within the context of thermodynamic non-equilibrium. In the latter, the time dependence is due to changes of the rest mass energy of the nuclei and elementary particles involved in the terms summation operator Q and Q that appear in the definitions of energy imparted epsilon and energy deposit epsilon(i), respectively. In fact, nothing is said about the averaging operation of the non-stochastic quantity mean energy imparted epsilon, which is used in the definition of D according to ICRU 60. It is shown in this research that the averaging operation necessary to define the epsilon employed to get D cannot be performed with an equilibrium statistical operator rho(r) as could be expected. Rather, the operation has to be defined with a time-dependent non-equilibrium statistical operator rho(r, t); therefore, D is a time-dependent function D(r,t).
authors.affiliation: SSDL, Metrology Department, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares ININ, PO Box 18-1027, 1180 Mexico City, Mexico. jtar@nuclear.inin.mx
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Alvarez-Romero
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009686:Nuclear Physics; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011874:Radiometry / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D055672:Static Electricity; D013816:Thermodynamics