Breaking an atom down in it's components.

[Sebas4]

TL;DR

Breaking an atom down in it's components with adding ionizing and binding energy to an atom.

Good day,

I have a question about breaking an atom down in it's components.

For an example we have a neutral 4-helium atom. The helium atom have a nucleus which contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons. Around the nucleus of the helium atom 2 electron orbits in the k-shell (according to Bohr's model). Imagine we want to ionize the neutral helium atom. We put some energy (work) into the helium atom to ionize it. We call this total ionizing energy A. Now we have left a He 2+ atom. If we add the binding energy from Helium into the system, all the protons and neutrons will be separated from each other. We call the binding energy B. So the total amount of energy we need to break an atom down in all it's components is energy A + energy B.

Here are my two questions:
Is it possible the break an atom down in all his components?
If yes is the total energy to break down the atom in all his components equal to the total ionizing energy + binding energy?
In the story above the total ionizing energy represent letter A and the binding energy represent letter B.

Thanks in advance for responding.

Sebas4.

 

[phinds]

Are you not considering quarks?

 

[phyzguy]

Assuming you don't want to break up the protons and neutrons, can you estimate the magnitudes of A and B in your plan? Which is larger?

 

[mfb]

Is it possible the break an atom down in all his components?

If you use protons, neutrons and electrons as components: Yes. Protons and neutrons are composite particles but you can't break them up in the way as you can break up an atom.

If yes is the total energy to break down the atom in all his components equal to the total ionizing energy + binding energy?

Yes, but one of them is just a rounding error in the sum.

 

[mathman]

In practice, ionizing He is relatively easy. Breaking up yhe nucleus is extremely. I am not aware of any such activities.