Background effect
The display of a particle or radiation detector that occurs in the absence of the actual radiation to be measured, for example without a radioactive preparation to be measured , is referred to as the background effect , less often zero rate . The background effect comes about
- due to unavoidable properties of the detector itself, such as dark current ,
- and / or by constantly existing natural or artificial radiation sources in the area.
In radiation protection , the term background effect is also used to mean constant exposure to radiation or background radiation .
For example, contribute to the natural background radiation:
- Terrestrial radiation (around 0.4 mSv / a in Germany)
- Radon from (underground) rock (about 1.26 mSv / a, in some stone houses up to 10 mSv / a)
- Natural radioactivity in building materials ( potassium -40)
- Natural radioactivity in the human body ( potassium -40, carbon -14 etc.) (approx. 0.39 mSv / a)
- primary and secondary cosmic radiation (approx. 0.3 mSv / a to 1.0 mSv / a on earth)
In addition, there is artificial background radiation caused by, among other things
- Noble gases from nuclear facilities (in normal operation) (below 0.01 mSv / a)
- Residual activity from the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents (less than 0.01 mSv / a)
- Radioactivity from nuclear weapons tests and the US nuclear weapons attacks on Japan (less than 0.01 mSv / a)
- Systems for the production of radiopharmaceutical preparations (e.g. Institut national des RadioElements in Belgium)
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- ↑ UNSCEAR "Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation" (PDF; 12.8 MB) p. 339 (downloaded on March 25, 2012)