ABSTRACT
Larger mass particles are accelerated less by charged particle interactions and so the pathway through the medium is straighter. One remarkable example of charged particle interaction is the aurora borealis, the beautiful display of lights seen at high northern latitudes on earth. Linear Energy Transfer is a quantity that describes the energy deposited locally near the point of interaction of a particle. In the context of medical physics there are two basic ways that a charged particle can lose energy: radiative loss and collisional loss. The electron typically undergoes many charged particle interactions with electrons in various atoms as it wanders through the medium, depositing small amounts of energy each time. However, it is possible that a single collision of the electron can produce an enormous energy loss. This can be up to 50% of the energy of the electron.
