Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: jeffreyH on 16/11/2017 18:49:13
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I have come across a lot of articles mentioning 14.5 mev neutrons. Is there anything significant about this energy value?
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14.5MeV appears to be the energy of neutrons released when Deuterium collides with Tritium, forming Helium + neutron
D + T → He + n0 + energy
Because there are only two products of this reaction, the energy of the resulting neutron is well-defined, at 14.5 MeV.
If there are 3 or more particles produced by a reaction, the energy would be randomly distributed between them, resulting in a wide spectrum of energy for the resulting neutron.
This variation in energy applies even if the third particle is an undetectable neutrino. It was this mysterious variation in energy that resulted in the prediction of the neutrino.
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D-T fusion is one of the easiest fusion reactions to initiate.
It can be done in the lab with a fairly low-voltage particle accelerator - 150keV (but unfortunately, these consume too much power to produce net fusion energy).
So studying the effects of 14.5MeV neutrons on containment vessels and electronics is very important for studies of fusion power and nuclear weapons.
But having a neutron probe of known energy is useful for studying atomic nuclei.
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It is very interesting that this energy value relates to the isotopes of hydrogen. I have been reviewing some old notes and found that energy in work on electron and quark energy ratios that I had been doing.
I have a feeling I am onto something. Now I've just got to figure out what it is.
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I have now managed to calculate an energy of 8.9 mev.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0029558261903455
The scattering asymmetries may be linked to the asymmetries I am looking at in the particle energies v charge.
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There are more examples of asymmetries. Here is one more.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fano_resonance