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Can anyone provide, or point me to, an explanation of minimum ionizing radiation? My understanding is that in the limit of ultrarelativistic velocities, a charged particle stopping in matter has a dE/dx that approaches some limit. Is this correct, and if so, why does it happen? Is it basically because an electron in the stopping material sees a pulse in the E and B fields, and the duration of the pulse is just [itex]\Delta x/c[/itex]? But doesn't the intensity of the fields depend on how close you are to c? (I'm imagining a Lorentz-transformed Coulomb field.) Am I right in thinking that dE/dx would depend only on the properties of the stopping material and on the particle's charge? I'd imagine it wouldn't depend on the particle's mass, since the particle is ultrarelativistic, so its momentum is basically E/c.
Thanks in advance!
-Ben
Thanks in advance!
-Ben