# Energy deposition for photons and beta particles
**URL:** https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363
**Category:** User Support
**Created:** [October 16, 2022, 2:30pm UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363 "2022-10-16T14:30:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kimberly](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/Kimberly)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2022, 2:30pm UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363/1 "2022-10-16T14:30:03Z")
Hello everyone,
I’m trying to count energy deposition for photons, beta particles and neutrons.
I learned from the Theory and Mathedology manual that OpenMc obtains all relevant components of fission energy release through modifications to heating reaction.
But I’m not sure whether energy of delayed fission photons and energy of prompt fission photons are both computed from NJOY. Is one of the two types of energies estimated proportionally according to the other?
In addition, how could I get energy deposition for beta particles?
Any help regarding this topic would be very appreciated.
Kimberly
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### Author:  [@paulromano](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/paulromano)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2022, 4:06am UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363/2 "2022-10-20T04:06:23Z")
Hi @Kimberly and welcome to the community!
> [@Kimberly](#):
>
> I’m not sure whether energy of delayed fission photons and energy of prompt fission photons are both computed from NJOY
NJOY does not include delayed fission photon energy in the KERMA values that it produces in the HEATR module.
> [@Kimberly](#):
>
> Is one of the two types of energies estimated proportionally according to the other?
Because we generally don’t know what the spectrum of delayed fission photons looks like, what we do instead is to artificially increase the yield of prompt photons from fission in order to produce the same amount of energy that would be produced by both prompt and delayed photons. This is done by default, although you can turn it off with `settings.delayed_photon_scaling = False`.
> [@Kimberly](#):
>
> In addition, how could I get energy deposition for beta particles?
Most heating-related scores (`heating`, `fission-q-recoverable`, and `kappa-fission`) include the energy from beta particles. I’d recommend taking a look at the description of the scores [here](https://docs.openmc.org/en/latest/usersguide/tallies.html#id4).
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### Author:  [@Kimberly](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/Kimberly)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2022, 2:48pm UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363/3 "2022-10-20T14:48:38Z")
Thank you @paulromano for your reply. If my understanding is correct, when I turn the treatment for delayed fission photons off, OpenMC treats photons in the same way as MCNP.
In fact, I had done a test for a cube filled with U235. Here is the input file
[U-cube.py](https://openmc.discourse.group/uploads/short-url/o6chsJdr5LQiQhmi7cTlt4V8F1S.py) (3.9 KB). The energy deposions for photons computed from OpenMC and MCNP are 10.79MeV/source and 7.01MeV/source, respectively. What causes the difference?
Thanks,
Kimberly
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### Author:  [@Kimberly](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/Kimberly)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2022, 7:28am UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363/4 "2022-11-25T07:28:43Z")
Please @paulromano, do you have any comments on this?
Thank you,
Kimberly
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### Author:  [@paulromano](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/paulromano)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2022, 4:33am UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363/5 "2022-12-07T04:33:11Z")
Hi @Kimberly. The value from MCNP (7.01 MeV/source) sounds like it just includes the prompt photon energy. If you are looking at the `heating` value from OpenMC, that includes the energy deposited not only by prompt photons produced from fission but also by photons produced from (n,γ) reactions. That is the most likely source of the difference you are seeing.
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### Author:  [@Kimberly](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/Kimberly)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2022, 7:50am UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/energy-deposition-for-photons-and-beta-particles/2363/6 "2022-12-20T07:50:48Z")
Thank you @paulromano for your reply. I will look in to that.
Kind regards,
Kimberly