Effects of elastic and inelastic scattering in giving electrons tortuous paths in matter

Heavy charged particles travel in essentially straight lines in matter, while electrons travel in tortuous paths. Frequent multiple elastic Coulomb scattering by atomic nuclei is often cited as the reason for this electron behavior. Heavy charged particles also undergo multiple Coulomb scattering. However, because they are massive, significant deflections occur only in rare, close encounters with nuclei. In contrast to heavy particles, the inelastic interaction of an electron with an atomic electron represents a collision with a particle of equal mass. In principle, therefore, repeated inelastic scattering of an electron can also produce large-angle deflections and thus contribute to the tortuous nature of an electron's track. To investigate the relative importance of elastic and inelastic scattering on determining the appearance of electron tracks, detailed Monte Carlo transport computations have been carried out for monoenergetic pencil beams of electrons normally incident on a water slab with initial energies from 1 keV to 1 MeV. The calculations have been performed with deflections due to (1) inelastic scattering only, (2) elastic scattering only, and (3) both types of scattering. Results are presented to show the spreading of the pencil beams with depth in the slab, the transmission through slabs of different thicknesses, and back-scattering from the slab. The results show that elastic nuclear scattering is indeed the principal physical process that causes electron paths to be tortuous; however, the smaller effect of inelastic electronic scattering is far from negligible.