Beta-ray dose distributions from point sources in an infinite water medium.

The ACCEPT Monte Carlo code has been used to calculate radial dose distributions around isotropic point sources of monoenergetic electrons between 0.01 and 10 MeV in an infinite water medium. The results were averaged over beta spectra to derive distributions for 147 beta emitters of which 32 are presented. More extensive tables of distributions will be presented in a report. Distributions for monoenergetic electrons agree with recent ETRAN-code calculations of Berger and Seltzer within 2%, except at very short distances where there are differences up to several percent. Results calculated by the EGS4 code differ by up to a few percent. Distributions for beta emitters are in excellent agreement with both experimental results and ETRAN and EGS4 calculations, except at very short distances.