All Questions
Tagged with neutrons experimental-physics
21
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Is it possible to produce a focused, high-intensity neutron beam?
Since neutrons are uncharged, exceptionally hard to control, my understanding is that particle accelerators can never directly produce a beam of neutrons. Instead, they need to accelerate some charged ...
- 121
2
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1
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71
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Sensitivity of different elements to neutron activation analysis
When I look at Ortec AN34 Experiment 17, I see that the last page shows relative sensitivity to Neutron activation by weight for different elements. For example, the analysis of Fluorine is shown as ...
- 21
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1
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359
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Gravity affects neutrons
A long time ago I asked whether gravity affected subatomic particles. An experimental physicist kindly explained that it's known to affect neutrons. Get a neutron source, and send a beam of neutrons ...
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1
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401
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How Chadwick concluded that the particles are neutrons but not photons?
James Chadwick conducted an experiment in which he bombarded Beryllium with alpha particles from the natural radioactive decay of Polonium. How he concluded that the radiation was made up of neutrons ...
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2
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How can we detect neutrons?
If I am asked to design a simple experiment to detect neutrons, how can I do that?
The problem is, neutron is a neutral particle. So, application of electric and magnetic fields won't help. Can I ...
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3
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131
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How, exactly, does an electron scatter off of a neutron?
I thought about this recently because of news articles discussing the measurements of the 'neutron skin' of large nuclei....
Is it due to the fact that both have a negative magnetic moment?
Or to ...
- 4,509
2
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1
answer
537
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How did Chadwick determine the speed of protons?
Chadwick, or perhaps one of the previous scientists who were working with the neutron experiment were able to determine the velocity of the protons ejected from the Paraffin wax.
I thought that the ...
- 2,356
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194
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Why do Xe-135 and Zr-88 have a surprisingly large thermal neutron capture cross-section?
Why do Xe-135 and Zr-88 have surprisingly large thermal neutron capture cross-sections?
The probability that a nucleus will absorb a neutron—the neutron capture cross-section—is important to many ...
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246
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Measuring neutron separation energy
In Introductory Nuclear Physics, Kenneth S. Krane describes neutron separation energy (page 65), and shows a list of measured values (Figure 5.2).
What experimental setup is used to measure these on ...
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21
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5
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How is the speed of nucleons in the nucleus measured?
This article claims that "nucleons in a dense nucleus exceed 25 percent of the speed of light".
How do you measure or infer the speed of nucleons in the nucleus?
Note added later: I'm looking here ...
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Would SiPMs respond differently to scintillation light from neutrons vs. gammas?
I have a fast-neutron scintillator which also is sensitive to gammas (much less so, though). When I connect it to a SiPM instead of a PMT, the gamma pulses (obtained from performing pulse shape ...
- 325
2
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Enrico Fermi and neutron interactions
Enrico Fermi and his team were studying neutron absorption and the subsequent gamma ray emissions, in the 1930’s era. They calculated, based on the size of the nucleus and the speed of the neutron, ...
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1
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411
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Spallation Neutron Source design
The Spallation Neutron Source (all details taken from this link) is described as firing a 1 GeV proton beam into a mercury target. As this makes the proton beam relativistic, a cyclotron cannot be ...
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1
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524
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What is an Anderson-Braun neutron counter?
I found this type of tool reading an article ("A neutron monitor with silver activation") but surfing the internet I can not find an explanation of what it is and how it works.
It's probably a basic ...
- 87
2
votes
1
answer
400
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Photomultiplier/ voltage divider troubleshooting
I have a Photonis XP5301 PMT to use for fast neutron detection (detector optically glued to the PMT window). I can't quite figure out why its not producing a spectrum. First of all, I have multiple ...
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