ABSTRACT
Dose is one of the most important quantities in radiation dosimetry that concerns a wide scope of professionals including physicists, physicians, and dosimetrists. Dose is used in a variety of applications. However, the determination of dose can be a very complicated experimental or computational task outside of a handful of simple, idealized scenarios. This chapter will focus on the mathematical expressions of dose derived from subatomic and atomic photon interactions and the transport of charged particle radiation through matter. This theoretical treatment of dose forms the basis of cavity theory that modern absorbed dose-to-water formalisms are based on, including the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group 21 and 51 reports or the IAEA TRS 271 and TRS 398. This chapter will explore the lineage and theory behind these clinically practiced formalisms and their determination of dose from applications of Bragg–Gray, Spencer–Attix, and Burlin cavity theories.
