Gamma rays Definition and 98 Threads

TL;DR Summary: Currently working on a project for lab where we're sending Geiger counters 100k feet into the air. Goal is to determine radiation as a function of altitude. Need some guidance. Hi everyone, I'm currently working on a project for lab where we're sending Geiger counters 100k feet...

We know that when a high energy gamma ray(E >= 1022 keV because the total energy of 1 electron at rest and 1 positron at rest is 511 keV) passes near a high Z(atomic weight) atomic nucleus interacts with the electrical field of the nucleus and there is a probability that this high energetic...

The problem comes with solutions. However, I dont get the 3 steps in the solutions. Why do they calculate decay for 120min in step 3? And why is only the daughter nuclide relevant and no granddaughter? There might be something lacking in my knowledge about nuclear reactions. Also, I don't know...

Astronauts heading towards Mars (and hopefully return) will need protection against the harmful effects of gamma rays in space for this long trip. Apparently, much shorter trips have not caused enough bodily harm to be of much concern. However, a 6-month or longer trip might be a real problem. I...

Both alpha and beta radiations can only travel short distances through air as they're not as penetrating as gamma radiations. How long gamma radiations with 22 MeV energy can travel in air? Is it meters, kilometers, miles, etc. Is there a difference between a lower energy gamma ray and a higher...

According to https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a351472.pdf the big pulsed power accelerator, HERMES III, generate electron beam with peak energy at 22 MeV and average electron energy at 16 MeV and the resulting photon energy which is bremsstrahlung radiation is approximately 2 MeV...

Some people said if it is originated from electrons then it is X-ray but if it is originated from the nucleus it is Gamma ray. But people can produced X-rays and Gamma rays by Bremsstrahlung process and in Bremsstrahlung process it is resulted from decelerating or braking electrons. So, Gamma...

According to this link https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a351472.pdf, HERMES III at Sandia National Labs can generate very large area gamma rays by converting the electron beam into bremsstrahlung radiations after hitting the tantalum target. As we can see in the isodose contours in the...

According to https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/7234564, the HERMES III which stand for High Energy Radiation Megavolt Electron Source accelerator is "capable of delivering a peak dose of ~100 krad (CaF2) over a useful area of ~1000cm2 (area where dose is greater than 50% of the peak dose) in a...

Hi: Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium Question 1: I think that the first statement suggests that it's the emission of alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays which raises the temperature of radium sample; possibly on their way out from the sample, those particles and gamma...

What sort of properties would you expect from gamma rays, as you increase their energy, and why? Would they penetrate high Z-matter more easily? What would be the outcome of the interactions? Do you expect photoelectric and Compton scattering processes to become negligible, and the dominant...

I understand the concept that a more energetic photon would cause more ionization events and therefore we can estimate the original energy of the incident photon. But what I don't get is that in practice, you don't get one photon entering the detector at a time, you get a whole bunch of them...

i already know radioactivity produces gamma rays. Are there other ways to produce gamma rays in a laboratory, without radioactive substances?

We can see wave length that get compress and get higher in height when they get high energy so how would wavelength react and it how it would look like when it gets high amount of energy(like infinite energy)?

is there some physical limit on the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation? Can there be radiation shorter than gamma rays?

Any theory what could be causing the excess gamma ray and the strange dips in the sun? https://www.quantamagazine.org/gamma-ray-data-reveal-surprises-about-the-sun-20190501/ "A decade’s worth of telescope observations of the sun have revealed a startling mystery: Gamma rays, the highest...

So I worked out the first part and obtained ##E_1 = 478.8MeV##, ##E_2 = 459.4MeV## and ##p = 0.49 MeV/c## but I can't quite wrap my head around the second part. Normally, I'd use the equation for s but I'm confused since I don't know the angle between the gamma rays.

Hi I was wondering what would happen if you use Gamma Rays in a double slit experiment. Would you see the same interference pattern?

My concerns are all about how much shielding would be needed for a nuclear reactor. Would aneutronic He3-He3 fusion produce less energetic photons than fission to be more easily used in more mobile reactors? Obviously very few neutrons are made in this reaction so that leaves the high energy...

Hi everyone. I was thinking about the question that I stated in the title. If you are exposed to radiation, such as alpha and beta particles, you don't emit radiation. The alpha particles are merely stopped because they don't have a high penetration. The beta particles pass through your body and...

Lets say you have your basic fusion reaction D + H → He3 + γ + 5.49 MeV Now exactly how much of the energy is carried away by the gamma ray and how much by the Alfa particle ?

I am not sure if this is entirely correct, but first I am going to say that life on Earth mostly thrives in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and perhaps some infrared and ultraviolet (for some creatures), because it is the frequency range that they were the most exposed to...

I understand that the fusion of hydrogen to helium in our sun's core generates gamma rays. My question is how are these gamma rays transformed to the full spectrum of photons that we that we observe from earth?

What equation would I need to use to determine the energy of photons released when radio-isotopes decay? I would like to figure out the energies of photons released when tritium and plutonium 237 decay.

When I saw the report of a gamma ray burst associated with the LIGO GW event, my immediate thought was that the obvious explanation is that the compact massive objects were not in fact black holes, and the gamma ray burst was from the energy of the final collision and merger. This would...

If there are bacteria that can get their energy from gamma rays (thus thriving on nuclear reactors), can multicellular life do it too? If so, wouldn't that broaden the parts of the universe where life could arise?

If we can not use gamma rays to detect Dark Matter what can we use? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160203110928.htm Studies by two independent groups from the US and the Netherlands have found that gamma ray signals from the inner galaxy come from a new source rather than from...

From my understanding gamma rays can damage metal, making it brittle. Fortunaly, this appears to be little, but sill if you have a lot (like in p-D fusion) it becomes a serious hazard. The question is, how much? Specificly I need to know how much damange it does in compairison to Neutron...

This question straddles this forum and the "Beyond the Standard Model" one a bit, so if a mentor thinks it belongs better elsewhere, please feel free to move it. I've seen references in the "popular science" press about the possibility of indirectly detecting dark matter by looking for gamma...

Is there a way to split gamma-ray photons into less energetic photons? And is the opposite possible, by combining low energy photons into a high energy one?

Or, more specifically, what determinates the frequency of the photons emitted by a such a collision. I know that the number of photons produced depends on the spin and energy states of the initial particles.

If we put cathode rod with enormouse voltage in vacuum between strong magnetic fields pointing down parallel to rod end then put electron in it with initial speed equal to speed of light and begin circling around cathode, Will electron make gamma -rays according to synchrotron radiation?

Hi, I came across a question in an exam which I couldn't really relate to any topic of physics, that I had studied. It goes like this- A detector is used to count the number of gamma rays emitted by a radioactive source. If the number of counts recorded in exactly 20 seconds is 10000, the...

Hey everyone I'm new here and this is my first thread, although i have great interest in chemistry and physics my knowledge of these fields is very basic( I'm graduated in economics) so don't be surprised if i ask something that may look silly. so here are my firsts questions. -Is it...

So i have a question regarding a homework question I'm working on which suggest a neutral pion traveling with velocity v decays into two gamma rays of equal theta to the normal and they of course have velocity c. It then asks to prove that v= cos theta Which kind of confuses me. I mean if...

If what used to be visible light when the universe was smaller and younger has been stretched due to the Doppler effect so that it is now microwaves and detectable as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation that can be found everywhere, why hasn't the gamma or x-rays of the same period not...

But high frequency are absorbed, like gamma rays. I would think it would be the opposite. So what's the physical reason?

Or light rays for that matter. Where does the window open in the atmosphere on the em spectrum, UV? Why is that?

Making it short : Do gamma rays ALWAYS accompany a nuclear reaction?? I was thinking, since there are only three types of radioactive decay, alpha, beta and gamma. I don't quite understand how gamma radiation will always occur. Isn't it going to be just ONE of the three types? /Help :)

Homework Statement A detector is used to count the number of gamma rays from a radioactive source if the number of counts is 10000 in exactly 20 secs then what is the error in counting rate per sec? Homework Equations- no idea. The Attempt at a Solution- As per our syllabus we...

Hello, I am trying to simulate the gammas from certain radioactive decays but I am really puzzle as to how to approach this. The site I'm using as a reference lists the intensities of the different gammas corresponding to an specific decay. The thing that confuses me is that, for example...

I know we can contain the energy/plasma from a fussion reaction with an electromagnetic field, but would an EMF protect from gamma rays? Would it be possible to deflect a nuclear blast with a powerful enough EMF?

The Reference Frame: A confirmation of the 130 GeV dark matter-like bump - Lubos Motl [1204.2797] A Tentative Gamma-Ray Line from Dark Matter Annihilation at the Fermi Large Area Telescope - Christoph Weniger [1205.1045] Fermi 130 GeV gamma-ray excess and dark matter annihilation in...

Hi all, I was having trouble with this problem and hoping that someone could help me with it. A pion has a rest energy of 135 MeV. It decays into two gamma rays, bursts of electro magnetic radiation that travel at the speed of light. A pion moving through the laboratory at v = 0.97c decays...

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/18oct_600mysteries/ "Fermi sees gamma rays coming from directions in the sky where there are no obvious objects likely to produce gamma rays," says David Thompson, Fermi Deputy Project Scientist from Goddard Space Flight Center...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15203788 Astronomers have spotted gamma ray emissions coming from the Crab Pulsar at far higher energies than expected. This challenges notions of how these powerful electromagnetic rays - like light, but far more energetic - are formed, researchers...

Hi everybody, We know that light is an electromagnetic wave.gamma rays are e.m.waves. Both of them have the same speed 3*10^8 m/s. Gamma ray have the property to penetrate in materials like wood,cement wall etc. But,light is not penetrating even in a single wood. What is the reason behind...

So apparently vacuum energy is created and destroyed within Planck time by matter, antimatter annihilation. If someone could theoretically stop or slow down time, would it be possible to tap into vacuum energy? Since annihilation creates gamma rays, I suppose vacuum energy would face the same...

In a discussion recently I came across the idea of an antimatter photon rocket, to quote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_photonic_rocket#Power_sources" Looking through various sites via google I've had a few answers as to how gamma rays may be reflected, the general consensus is that it...

Here are some recent papers on attempts to detect dark matter directly or indirectly: a solar system test with a possible positive result: http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.1697 direct detection, with seemingly contradictory results: http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1066 via gamma-ray astronomy...