Penetration and Diffusion of Hard X-Rays: Polarization Effects

Abstract
Most calculations of x-ray penetration and diffusion neglect the polarization of the scattered photons. In this paper an investigation is made of the effect of polarization in a typical x-ray penetration problem. The Boltzmann equation for polarizable photons is expanded into suitable angular and spatial polynomial systems; and a calculation based on this Boltzmann equation is compared with a similar calculation which neglects polarization. The polarization effect increases the intensity of the 100-200 kev secondaries by a few percent.