MONTE-CARLO CALCULATIONS OF PARTICLE FLUENCES AND NEUTRON EFFECTIVE DOSE RATES IN THE ATMOSPHERE

Monitoring of radiation exposure of aircrew is a legal requirement for many airlines in the EU and a challenging task in dosimetry. Monte-Carlo simulations of cosmic particles in the atmosphere can contribute to the understanding of the corresponding radiation field. Calculations of secondary neutron fluences in the atmosphere produced by galactic cosmic rays together with the resulting neutron-effective dose rates are shown in this paper and compared with results from the AIR project. The PLANETOCOSMICS package based on GEANT4 and two models for the local interstellar spectra of galactic cosmic rays have been used for the calculations. Furthermore, secondary muon fluences have been computed and are compared with CAPRICE measurements