Can someone explain why gamma radiation is ionizing but neutron radiation is not (or is called indirectly ionizing)?
Various books and sources explain that the particle hitting the atom must bear charge in order to ionize it.
Yet gamma rays don't bear charge.
Then I read this
>Even though they bear no charge, gamma rays are able to produce ionization as they pass through matter. (http://www.chem.wisc.edu/deptfiles/genchem/sstutorial/Text4/Tx45/tx45.html)
But Wikipedia states that sometimes neutrons are more penetrating than gamma radiation.
Why can't a high energy neutron excite an electron, but a gamma ray can?
I'm confused.
Pic unrelated.
I'm going to guess that neutrons with high energy arent going fast enough to effect the energy of electrons, but because they are so much heavier they penetrate and still can have more energy than electrons
It needs one charge or another to take part in the atom dance otherwise it just drops 420 blaze it
>>7670533
More penetrating = less ionising bruh
Because λ=h/p, and neutrons are so massive, p is large and λ is small. Less chance for collision. This doesnt feel very legit someone correct if I'm wrong.
>>7670541
What the shit are you even talking about. If they have high energy they're fast u dipshit thats like the meaning of being fast
Photoelectric effect friendo read it up innit
>>7670541
This makes no sense.
>>7670546
This makes some sense, but you'd think that it'd be categorized as ionizing radiation, then...
When inelastic scattering happens, some of the neutron's kinetic energy is used to excite the atom.
Why can't the energy be high enough to ionize it?
Could it be that neutrons emitted by radioactive atoms don't get a kinetic energy that is high enough?
So if there were a neutron accelerator made by humans, they could acquire such energy?
I still don't quite understand this.
>>7670533
Who is this semen demon?
without googling or looking at text books i think both make sense, but id add that neutrons if given enough energy will ionize the fuck out of an atom by literally smashing it.
most importantly though theres no electromagnetic field associated with a neutron wheras gamma rays are basically all EM
>>7670569
Who is this testicle temptress?
how in the fuck do i reply to posts this site is retarded you are all retards
>>7670571
Who is this spermatozoa... erm...
>>7670533
Gamma rays (photons) are carriers of the EM interaction. That should clear out things.
>>7670533
and neutrons can excite electrons but the probability is much smaller than of the gamma ray
>>7670533
cute chick
>>7670586
It really doesn't.
If the absorption of a neutron can excite an electron, why can't it have enough energy to remove it completely from the atom?
Gamma radiation is composed of photons. Neutron radiation is composed of neutrons.
Gamma rays are absorbed, and in doing so they destroy the balance of energy within atoms. This causes the atoms to fly off into pieces - such as more photons - which disrupt more atoms by adding more energy to them.
Neutrons are called neurons because they have a neutral charge - they aren't attracted or repelled very strongly. So, they have to insert energy into an atom by bumping into it. As well, to get into the nucleus requires more energy than simply being absorbed.
Basically, a gamma ray source can irradiate an ever-enlarging sphere of space with a lower and lower density of gamma rays. One gamma source gives birth to another.
On the other hand, a neutron source just bathes the environment with neutrons, rather than making more neutron sources. In fact, if neutron radiation is ionizing, you know you're dealing with a source powerful enough to eject neutrons with the velocity necessary to bust atoms.
>>7670579
You click on the post number, or just type >>(post number).
EM waves are a field. EM field. Thats why charged shit can ionize, the electric field can knock shit out. Neutrons have to knock the electons out ans thats not gonna happen readily because the atom is mostly nothing.
>>7670739
Now I get it, thanks!
>>7670566
How would humans accelerate neutrons in an accelerator if they have no charge?
>>7670533
>neutron radiation is not
It is.
>>7670630
>you're dealing with a source powerful enough to eject neutrons with the velocity necessary to bust atoms.
Isn't this how nuclear bombs nuclear bombs work?
>>7670615
maybe if neutrons collide with enough energy to free the electron, it just ends up capturing the electron and making a proton? This would still be considered an ion though so that pov doesn't really help much.
>>7670533
Probably because neutrons have no charge, meaning that it would have to 'directly hit' an electron to knock it off an atom
>>7670775
>Isn't this how nuclear bombs nuclear bombs work?
It's a misleading simplification to say that's how it works. It's true that neutrons catalyze the fission reaction but it's not a case of neutrons being so fast that they blow up atoms like exploding chinaware. It's simply that a fissionable element capturing a neutron have no stable configuration in which to store it, so they instantly break down and scatter more neutrons.
Several elements and isotopes can happily capture the neutron safely and with no runaway reaction.
Nuclear reactions are a lot more than just emitting and capturing neutrons, it's more fair to compare it to a special case of chemistry where instead of elements forming molecules with different configurations you have protons and neutrons forming nuclei with different configurations.
>>7670770
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-06/993474662.Ph.r.html
>Our usual particle machinery cannot accelerate neutrons and other neutral particles. However, we can create neutrons which are traveling very fast.
lemme break it down for you:
gammas can directly interact with electrons via
compton scattering
photoelectric effect
or with the nucleus via pair production
neutrons typically interact with nuclei and cause transmutations or collisions
also thermal neutrons typically have higher absorbance cross sections than neutrons in the MeV range
both photons and neutrons are indirectly ionizing radiation, as opposed to charged particles witch are directly ionizing. this is the reason why alphas, betas, etc have finite ranges in all materials (and are continuously interactive), whereas photons have only finite probabilities of interactions, and can theoretically have an infinite range. that's why charged particles are discussed in terms of LET or linear energy transfer (energy deposition per distance travelled) and gammas/neutrons are discussed in terms of cross sections (probabilities of interaction)
>>7670775
>Isn't this how nuclear bombs nuclear bombs work?
Most fission only involves atom splitting - the neutrons stay with the two new nuclei. For neutrons to be knocked out with any regularity requires a constant source of very high energy particles. I'd imagine a neutron bomb - a bomb that emits tons of neutrons - would require a very high energy density fuel that could release all that energy at once.
Also, what >>7670804 and >>7671081 said.
>>7670725
lol, thank you...
why the midget
>>7671465
this tbqh family
>>7670770
>if there were
Huh.
>>7670774
From what I have learned it's not directly ionizing, but is usually followed by gamma radiation emitted by the atom hit by a neutron.
>>7670794
Don't the gamma rays have to directly hit the electron?
>>7671081
So if both are indirectly ionizing, why is it that gamma is categorized as ionizing and neutron isn't?
Your post didn't really give me any new information.
>>7671465
No more.
>>7670739
Is this post correct?
That it's just the electric field of the gamma photon that knocks out the electron?
>>7670533
gamma radiation has so much kinetic energy that it is able to knock electrons from molecules ionising them.
>>7673409
no. piss off with the shitposting
moar sloots in boob dresses OP
