PNNL

Abstract

A simple classical model that captures the essential statistics of energy partitioning processes involved in the creation of information carriers (ICs) in radiation detectors is presented. The model pictures IC formation from a fixed amount of deposited energy in terms of the statistically analogous process of successively sampling water from a large, finite-volume container (“bathtub”) with a small dipping implement (“shot glass”). The model exhibits sub-Poisson variance in the distribution of the number of ICs generated (the “Fano e_ect”). Elementary statistical analysis of the model clarifies the role of energy conservation in producing the Fano e_ect and yields Fano’s prescription for relating the IC number distribution to the mean and variance of the underlying IC energy distribution. The connection between the model and energy partitioning in semiconductor radiation detectors is illustrated, and the implications of this simple picture for guiding or constraining more detailed, “microscopic” physical models of detector material response to ionizing radiation are discussed.