title: Reducing Statistical Uncertainties in Simulated Organ Doses of Phantoms Immersed in Water.
abstract: In this article, methods are addressed to reduce the computational time to compute organ-dose rate coefficients using Monte Carlo techniques. Several variance reduction techniques are compared including the reciprocity method, importance sampling, weight windows and the use of the ADVANTG software package. For low-energy photons, the runtime was reduced by a factor of 105 when using the reciprocity method for kerma computation for immersion of a phantom in contaminated water. This is particularly significant since impractically long simulation times are required to achieve reasonable statistical uncertainties in organ dose for low-energy photons in this source medium and geometry. Although the MCNP Monte Carlo code is used in this paper, the reciprocity technique can be used equally well with other Monte Carlo codes.
authors: Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN37831, USA.
authors: M M
authors: MM
authors: Hiller
authors: Easterly Scientific, 6412 Westminster Rd., Knoxville, TN37919, USA.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Veinot
authors: Easterly Scientific, 6412 Westminster Rd., Knoxville, TN37919, USA.
authors: C E
authors: CE
authors: Easterly
authors: Georgia Institute of Technology, 770 State Street, Atlanta, GA30332-074, USA.
authors: N E
authors: NE
authors: Hertel
authors: Easterly Scientific, 6412 Westminster Rd., Knoxville, TN37919, USA.
authors: K F
authors: KF
authors: Eckerman
authors: Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN37831, USA.
authors: M B
authors: MB
authors: Bellamy
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D017785:Photons; D011874:Radiometry; D012984:Software; D014867:Water
chemical_list: D014867:Water