Question
Asked 1 March 2012

Can Ever neutrons be directly accelerated by any means of energy ?

If your answer is no; yes it is by thermal energy

Most recent answer

Richard Collins
The Internet Foundation
Riccardo Bernardini This is an interesting article. But search "neutron accelerator" on Google and you get many tens of thousands of entry points. The neutron has a magnetic moment, so is affected by any magnetic gradient. Actually by any energy density gradient of the right size and timing. But it is a well developed and valuable technique.
I have been following neutron control methods for many years, but I am looking at low cost methods for research and development groups. And for low and middle income countries. Neutron sources can be tuned, neutrons can be slowed, neutrons can be focused, neutron activation and scattering have many uses. Lots of useful things now. The same methods (and better ones) work on any particle of any size that has a permanent or induced magnetic or electric moment.
("accelerating neutrons" OR "neutron accelerator") has 102,000 entry points (Google, 11 Mar 2022).
If you search for "The development of a low energy neutron accelerator for rebunching pulsed neutrons" there are a few places the PDF is posted.
If you see their equation (1) it has the usual B^2 term that is a good indication that energy density gradient methods are the low cost way to handle it. I have been at this for just over 40 years now. Lots of times the original ideas and methods never amount to much, even if a lot of money gets spent. It is when it gets into "engineering" stage that new products, devices and applications for society happen. With more sensitive amplifiers and ADCs, with high sampling rates and low latency monitoring of real time data streams, many things that were "impossible" a year ago, are possible now. Every day I read the "old" books and papers from the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's to see places they said "impossible", and what they should have said, "not economic or possible with our current sensors, computers and algorithms". And that has changed, dramatically, in the last year or so.
I try to track those things every day for the Internet Foundation. Because the methods of the Internet depend on those same technologies applied to problems in all parts of human society.
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
3 Recommendations

Popular answers (1)

Richard Collins
The Internet Foundation
Riccardo Bernardini This is an interesting article. But search "neutron accelerator" on Google and you get many tens of thousands of entry points. The neutron has a magnetic moment, so is affected by any magnetic gradient. Actually by any energy density gradient of the right size and timing. But it is a well developed and valuable technique.
I have been following neutron control methods for many years, but I am looking at low cost methods for research and development groups. And for low and middle income countries. Neutron sources can be tuned, neutrons can be slowed, neutrons can be focused, neutron activation and scattering have many uses. Lots of useful things now. The same methods (and better ones) work on any particle of any size that has a permanent or induced magnetic or electric moment.
("accelerating neutrons" OR "neutron accelerator") has 102,000 entry points (Google, 11 Mar 2022).
If you search for "The development of a low energy neutron accelerator for rebunching pulsed neutrons" there are a few places the PDF is posted.
If you see their equation (1) it has the usual B^2 term that is a good indication that energy density gradient methods are the low cost way to handle it. I have been at this for just over 40 years now. Lots of times the original ideas and methods never amount to much, even if a lot of money gets spent. It is when it gets into "engineering" stage that new products, devices and applications for society happen. With more sensitive amplifiers and ADCs, with high sampling rates and low latency monitoring of real time data streams, many things that were "impossible" a year ago, are possible now. Every day I read the "old" books and papers from the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's to see places they said "impossible", and what they should have said, "not economic or possible with our current sensors, computers and algorithms". And that has changed, dramatically, in the last year or so.
I try to track those things every day for the Internet Foundation. Because the methods of the Internet depend on those same technologies applied to problems in all parts of human society.
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
3 Recommendations

All Answers (18)

Venkatesh P.A.M Pillai
Arizona State University
Particle accelerators bro.. Long way to go.. Neutrons are accelerated by almost all kinds of energy.. There are other factors deciding which is best..
Michael Whitworth
University of Bolton
Stars emit neutrons so that is by thermal energy and are also carried along by waves of light (photons) along with electrons and other particles from space.
You could bombard a neutron like in a neutron bomb which uses uranium 253, or uranium 265 where the uranium is smashed into the other piece of uranium usually by a small explosion that is powerful enough to send the neutrons out of the uranium atom into the next - uranium has got a high number of electrons protons and neutrons so it all gets released and causes a neutron chain reaction.
Neutrons are bigger than electrons and protons and are usually at the center of atoms as said above a particle accelerator can propel neutrons - usually a particle accelerator accelerates protons by speeding up electrons (electrons is usually the force measured in electron volts (ev)) so if you see a particle accelerator measurement of 20tev that is 20 tera electronvolts or 20 to the power of 1 billion billion electron volts. The CERN Particle accelerator managed to get them up to speeds greater than the speed of light 99.999 C
If you are thinking of making a time machine let me know !!
1 Recommendation
Venkatesh P.A.M Pillai
Arizona State University
throw some light on the statement in the quotes.
Stars emit neutrons so that is by thermal energy and are also "carried along by waves of light (photons) along with electrons and other particles from space".
I think I missed that one in all my years of learning. Cos, if its so, why would CERN taking even the weakest chances of of finding Higgs boson at their facility with this much resources?
I mean It could prove the existence of Higgs Mechanism and thereby Higgs Boson by observing the duality of photon itself right?
C.AmarEshwar Prasad
Group T-International University College Leuvan
SIr,
I asked this question because i had recently created a proposal named "Thermal Neutron Accelerator " which can accelerate neutron with the help of thermal energy.
I need to get the comments on my idea.
Could you please help me ?
Thank You
Venkatesh P.A.M Pillai
Arizona State University
I am afraid thats not my area of expertise. Maybe you can post your proposal's abstract in this plane and let the people discuss over it. Accelerating neutron itself involves a lot of thermal radiation. I dont know if a system can contain and observe the reactions as well.. ultimate reason for an accelerator is to study. You should keep that in mind while designing. All the Best..
OK, here's the tutorial for those of you who missed the relevant lectures:
Acceleration is produced when a force acts on an object. Neutrons have zero charge, so electric fields don't exert force on them. They have mass so gravity does act on them. They have a magnetic dipole moment, so they experience a force in a magnetic field gradient. Both of these forces are extremely small and can't be used to give neutrons much energy in an "accelerator" small enough to fit on the Earth. If you want fast neutrons you can get them by accelerating protons or heavy ions and using them to knock out fast neutrons or produce them from nuclear reactions, or you can use fission which emits fast neutrons.
"Thermal acceleration" is a nonsense term. "Thermal neutrons" are neutrons which have scattered (bounced) off protons and other neutrons, losing and gaining energy with each bounce, until they have the same average energy as the other particles in the mix, which are characterized by a temperature. They don't bounce very often, that's why nuclear reactors have to be built so big. But you don't get acceleration that way, you get desired deceleration from the fast neutrons generated in fission down to slow ones that are more readily absorbed by a fissionable nucleus, which "tickles" the nucleus into splitting and emitting a few more fast neutrons.
Carlos J. Gavilán Moreno
Iberdrola. Central Nuclear de Cofrentes
Neutrons are only mass, with no electrical charge. Only impact can accelerate mass.
1 Recommendation
Ed Trollope
European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)
As Carlos said, Neutrons have no charge and cannot be accelerated by electromagnetic fields. However, this is just one of the four forces in nature and the other three do act upon them - the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity.
Given the electromagnetic force is the only one we have any real control over with modern technology, this is what is used in accelerators such as at CERN - which I would note here has NOT accelerated neutrons (or anything else) beyond the speed of light, despite what Michael says above. Accelerating to or beyond light speed is not possible, and the maximum velocities achieved at CERN are 99.9999991% of light speed. CERN accelerates protons and antiprotons (not electrons or neutrons) with powerful electromagnetic fields - these don't just accelerate the particle beams, they are also vital for guiding the beams.
So, if you want to accelerate neutrons, you're going to have a difficult time. You could in principle accelerate them through a constant bombardment with other particles or photons, but unlike charged particles you cannot correct any inaccuracies in your velocity vector (including their initial velocity), so ensure your particles arrive where you want them to, or keep them in a focused beam for you to apply your acceleration process. Since you cannot guide your particles, you would need some means of tracking them, which would also interfere with your acceleration process.
1 Recommendation
Lesotlho David Kock
The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa)
As Carlos said above we are dealing here with mass and no eletrical charge. The huge interest in understanding gravity is directly related to being able to control it and thereby willingly accelerate or slow down chargeless particles.
Vasyl Tokar
Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg, French National Centre for Scientific Research
@Peter Heindl : Tachyons are hypothetical particles proposed as a joke in a paper published on Fools Day, if I'm not mistaken (maybe, submitted on that day because the publication date is rarely at the authors' control). Nobody was able to prove that such particles might not exist (that was the essence of the paper). Neither anybody ever saw such particles.
Sanket kumar Saxena
Uttarakhand Technical University
Can proton also.
Andres Cicuttin
Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
You can electromagnetically accelerate neutrons belonging to Tritium or Deuterium nuclei (i.e. positive ions).
1 Recommendation
Andres Cicuttin
Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
You may first accelerate a deuterium nuclei and then separate the neutron from the proton.
Eddy Lelièvre-Berna
Institut Laue-Langevin
Neutrons have a spin and can be accelerated with a RF flipper. The Zeeman potential energy leads to a slight change of the neutron velocity due to the Lorentz force when traversing a field gradient. The velocity change is 0.0025% for 8Å neutrons passing in 1T field.
Riccardo Bernardini
University of Udine
This could be of interest
From the article (top of pag. 2)
"It is well known that a particle with a magnetic dipole moment such as a neutron must undergo an acceleration in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. More recently it has been shown that a magnetic dipole in homogeneous magnetic and electric fields must undergo an acceleration both classically and quantum mechanically."
1 Recommendation
Richard Collins
The Internet Foundation
Riccardo Bernardini This is an interesting article. But search "neutron accelerator" on Google and you get many tens of thousands of entry points. The neutron has a magnetic moment, so is affected by any magnetic gradient. Actually by any energy density gradient of the right size and timing. But it is a well developed and valuable technique.
I have been following neutron control methods for many years, but I am looking at low cost methods for research and development groups. And for low and middle income countries. Neutron sources can be tuned, neutrons can be slowed, neutrons can be focused, neutron activation and scattering have many uses. Lots of useful things now. The same methods (and better ones) work on any particle of any size that has a permanent or induced magnetic or electric moment.
("accelerating neutrons" OR "neutron accelerator") has 102,000 entry points (Google, 11 Mar 2022).
If you search for "The development of a low energy neutron accelerator for rebunching pulsed neutrons" there are a few places the PDF is posted.
If you see their equation (1) it has the usual B^2 term that is a good indication that energy density gradient methods are the low cost way to handle it. I have been at this for just over 40 years now. Lots of times the original ideas and methods never amount to much, even if a lot of money gets spent. It is when it gets into "engineering" stage that new products, devices and applications for society happen. With more sensitive amplifiers and ADCs, with high sampling rates and low latency monitoring of real time data streams, many things that were "impossible" a year ago, are possible now. Every day I read the "old" books and papers from the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's to see places they said "impossible", and what they should have said, "not economic or possible with our current sensors, computers and algorithms". And that has changed, dramatically, in the last year or so.
I try to track those things every day for the Internet Foundation. Because the methods of the Internet depend on those same technologies applied to problems in all parts of human society.
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
3 Recommendations

Similar questions and discussions

What is a phenomenon called "false vacuum collapse"?
Discussion
4 replies
  • Abbas KashaniAbbas Kashani
What is a phenomenon called "false vacuum collapse"?
as you know :
Mean field energy and bubble formation. The cloud is initially prepared in FV with all atoms in |↑⟩ (A). Although the single spin mode |↓⟩ is lower in energy in the center of the cloud (E↓E↑), the opposite is true in the low-density tails. The interface (domain wall) between ferromagnetic regions with opposite magnetism has positive (kinetic) energy, which is added to the minimum double energy resulting from ferromagnetic interaction. Macroscopic tunneling can occur resonantly in the bubble mode (B), which has a |↓⟩ bubble in the center. The increase in core energy compensates for the cost of domain-wall energy. Crossing the barrier can be caused by quantum fluctuations at zero temperature (full arrow) or by thermal fluctuations at finite temperature (empty arrow). After the tunneling process, the bubble size increases in the presence of dissipation to reach the true vacuum (TV) state (C), without returning to (A). Credit: Nature Physics (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-023-02345-4
An experiment carried out in Italy with theoretical support from the University of Newcastle provided the first experimental evidence of vacuum decay.
In quantum field theory, when a not-so-stable state becomes a true stable state, it is called a "pseudovacuum collapse." This happens through the creation of small local bubbles. While existing theoretical work can predict how often this bubble formation occurs, there is not much empirical evidence.
The Pitaevskii Center for Supercold Atoms Laboratory for the Bose-Einstein Condensation in Trento reports for the first time observations of phenomena related to the stability of our universe. The results are the result of a collaboration between the University of Newcastle, the National Institute of Optics CNR, the Department of Physics at the University of Trento and TIFFA-INFEN and are published in Nature Physics.
The results are supported by theoretical simulations and numerical models, confirming the origin of the decay quantum field and its thermal activation, and opening the way to simulate out-of-equilibrium quantum field phenomena in atomic systems.
This experiment uses a supercooled gas at a temperature less than one microkelvin from absolute zero. At this temperature, the bubbles appear as the vacuum collapses, and Newcastle University's Professor Ian Moss and Dr Tom Billam were able to conclusively show that the bubbles are the result of heat-activated vacuum collapse.
Ian Moss, Professor of Theoretical Cosmology at Newcastle University's School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, said: "Vacuum collapse is thought to play a central role in the creation of space, time and matter in the Big Bang, but so far it has not. In particle physics, the decay of the Higgs boson vacuum changes the laws of physics and creates what has been described as the 'ultimate ecological catastrophe'."
Dr Tom Bilam, Senior Lecturer in Applied/Quantum Mathematics, added: "Using the power of ultracold atom experiments to simulate analogues of quantum physics in other systems – in this case the early universe itself – is a very exciting area of research. the moment."
This research opens new avenues in understanding the early universe as well as ferromagnetic quantum phase transitions.
This groundbreaking experiment is only the first step in the discovery of vacuum decay. The ultimate goal is to find vacuum decay at absolute zero temperature, where the process is driven solely by quantum vacuum fluctuations. An experiment in Cambridge, supported by Newcastle as part of the national QSimFP collaboration, is doing just that.
Stam Nicolis added a reply:
Just what the name says: There are many physical systems, whose potential energy, in the absence of fluctuations, possesses more than one minima. If these minima are not degenerate, it can occur that one is the absolute minimum, however, due to the choice of initial conditions, the system is found in another minimum. In the absence of fluctuations, it will stay in the potential well of that minimum.
In the presence of fluctuations, it can occur that the relative minimum is no longer a minimum: In that case the system won't stay there forever and it is possible to compute the rate at which it will evolve to another state.
While the presence of fluctuations is a necessary condition, it isn't sufficient for transitions to be possible.
Sergey Shevchenko added a reply:
What is a phenomenon called "false vacuum collapse"?”
- the answer to this question is: the question really is absurdity, since really there cannot be fundamentally any “false vacuum”, i.e. that really is an fundamental absurdity, and so its “collapse” is absurdity as well.
Though yeah, in mainstream physics really rather numerous fantastic/mystic “true/false vacuums” really exist, and corresponding publications, where corresponding fantastic/mystic properties and effects of/in the vacuums are “discovered”, are well popular and numerous.
That exists in the mainstream completely logically inevitably from the fact that in the mainstream all really fundamental phenomena/notions, first of all on this case “Matter”– and so everything in Matter, i.e. “particles”, “fundamental Nature forces” – and so “fields”, etc., including “vacuum”, “Consciousness”, “Space”, “Time”, “Energy”, “Information”, are fundamentally completely transcendent/uncertain/irrational,
- and so in every case when the mainstream addresses to something that is really fundamental, the results completely inevitably are only some the fantasies.
More see recent SS post in https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_a_super_vacuum_Is_the_earth_in_a_vacuum_And_what_is_dark_energy , and links in the post; reDzennn comment, 9/8 [because of too active moderator] passages, to a Nature Physics (2024) paper in
Zoltan Vilagosh added a reply:
Not that complicated really. False vacuum example = because you cannot see over the hill, you think are at the lowest level possible. This makes you think you have no potential energy left. But a surprise awaits if you make it to the top of the hill...you tumble lower onto the vast endless plain on the other side.
__/\O/\
\
\__O
Sergey Shevchenko added a reply:
“…Not that complicated really. False vacuum example = because you cannot see over the hill, you think are at the lowest level possible. This makes you think you have no potential energy left. But a surprise awaits if you make it to the top of the hill...you tumble lower onto the vast endless plain on the other side. …..”
- that above looks as tooo not complicated passage really, though, again, on such level the authors of the paper in a top physical Nature Physics (2024) journal also thought,
- which “discovered” “false vacuum bubbles decays” in some Bose-Einstein Cond sate of Na-23 atoms, more see reDzennn comment, 8 passages, in https://phys.org/news/2024-01-phenomenon-false-vacuum-decay.html, the strangely removed by moderator passage is in the end of whole comments series.
Though yeah, the really full stop “false vacuum” theories are rather popular in mainstream physics, including rather popular is the theory that Matter was created soon 14 billion years ago at some “bubble in spacetime decay”. Thank heavens till now no any even small bubbles didn’t decay near Earth, and nowhere in Space at all, in last 10 billion of years Milky Way existence.
However, again, this full stop – and so quite easily composed - fantasies are so rather popular, and in this case so some people don’t like the comment, correspondingly it is heavily “down voted”.
DO PHYSICAL QUANTA EXIST? Why Should CONSCIOUSNESS Be Treated Quantum-Biologically?
Discussion
53 replies
  • Raphael NeelamkavilRaphael Neelamkavil
If the quanta spoken of in the physical sciences are physically existent, they cannot be mere vacua acting on other vacua. Merely saying that they are statistically full of vacua-type quanta does not solve anything. If they are non-existent, they cannot act at all. Hence, there is no question even of the correlation between two sorts of processes and then if we somehow insert into it all the quantum-mechanical articulations in terms of statistical measurements (1) of existent causes or non-causes, (2) mere articulations of our statistical recognition of some BEHAVIOUR, etc.
In all of these, how can we now speak of the existence of things -- however minute, near-infinitesimal, even in the case of the quanta of energy? If they are physically existent -- and not merely capable of being spoken of --, then quantum-physical definitions of statistical causality, the notorious consciousness-dependence of the existent quantum world, etc. can be avoided by some new ways of re-interpreting statistical causality.
Something weird for some physicists would be this: If the photons are not merely a statistical or merely mathematically existent affair in STR, GTR, QFT, quantum cosmology, etc., they must be existing non-vacuously. How can a non-vacuous and non-infinitesimal photon be made to travel (1) in some experiments merely as a wave and (2) in some other experiments merely as particle?
Some seem to suggest that consciousness-level brain activities are to be subject to a quantum biology. But if photons and any other sort of quanta (say, of neutrinos) are not vacuous and hence Extended, they too should have parts, these parts too should have some sort of Change, etc., ad libitum. Why then should we limit consciousness-level brain activity to the current level of quantum physics?
Let us conclude by formulating a generally acceptable kernel of what in the very least is meant when we say that something exists. My use of the word ‘electron’ need not mean that any of the models of electron as an existent must as such be the case out-there. This is because the word ‘electron’ is a denotative word constructed linguistically. It denotes a denotable, which exists as whatever it is, without our having to take it to be exactly this way or that way. But there can be at least some physical-ontological guidelines as to how an electron cannot be. For example, it is not a pure vacuum. Let alone the discourse that only quantum vacua exist. This is exactly what I mean, too: a pure vacuum does not contain any existent, not even one quantum of energy. A quantum of energy should be carried by something existent, and not by something vacuous. This quality that it is not a pure vacuum is what I call Extension. Every existent must be in Extension. If extended, it has parts, which are in some Change, too. In short, it is impossible to say that anything termed electron can exist without internal Change, which may be caused externally and/or internally.
Extension and Change are the ways without which nothing can exist. If anything is in Extension-Change-wise existence, this is causal existence: some finite amount of causation happens there. An antecedent changes within itself due to the impact that its parts make and are made to take. It is continuous in the sense that it is continuously the manner of existence of anything, but this is not infinite causation. If anything existent should be such, this shows that all existents are in Causality. This is the pre-scientific Universal Law of Causality. Now clearly, quantum wavicles too should be in causation, if we are speaking of existents, and not of pure vacua.
I suggest that only those who are sure of the existence of the world, in it some biological existents, in them some developed or less developed brains, etc. need to attempt their thoughts here. Others are all blissfully convinced that there are no photons, there are no electrons, there exists only consciousness, etc. They need only to repeat "I am That". We can only envy their spiritual attainments.

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