Options for the modified radiation weighting factor of neutrons

The recent ICRP Report 92 has noted that the current radiation weighting factor, wR, depends on the energy of the incident neutrons in a manner that differs substantially from the dependence, which results from the current convention, Q(L). At all neutron energies, but most conspicuously below 1 MeV, the values of wR exceed those of the effective quality factor, qE. The discrepancy is largely due to the fact that—in the absence of computed values of the effective quality factor for neutrons—wR has been patterned after the values of the ambient quality factor, which accounts insufficiently for the low-linear energy transfer (LET) gamma ray component from neutron capture in the human body. There are different options to remove the discrepancy. Option 1 is to reduce wR substantially at all neutron energies to make it equal to qE for a standard condition, such as isotropic incidence of the neutrons. Since such a reduction may cause problems in those countries where the current wR values are already legally implemented, ICRP 92 has proposed what is here termed Option 2. It recommended to replace Q(L) by the increased value 1.6 Q(L) − 0.6 and, accordingly, to make the radiation weighting factor equal to 1.6 qE − 0.6. With Option 2 the radiation weighting factor needs to be decreased appreciably at low neutron energies, but for fission neutron spectra the overall changes are minor. To guide—regardless which option is chosen—the selection of the numerical values, the effective quality factor, qE, is computed here for different directional distributions of neutrons incident on the anthropomorphic phantoms ADAM and EVA. None of the sex averaged numerical values is found to deviate much from those for isotropic incidence. Isotropic incidence can, thus, be used as an adequate standard condition. A numerical approximation is proposed for the standard qE that is nearly equivalent to a formula invoked by ICRP 92, but is somewhat simpler and provides realistic values of qE even for the extremely high neutron energies in space. In line with ICRP 92, it is emphasised that wR needs to be seen as a derived quantity related to the LET-dependent weighting factor.