Can any element be photodisintegrated

[David lopez]

Can any element be photodisintegrated or are there certain elements that can't be photodisintegrated?

 

[Nik_2213]

Reading around, looks like almost all can be photodisintegrated, but actinides and short-half life isotopes may photofission at a lower energy...

Um, with the exception of hydrogen, though wiki reckons "A photon carrying 2.22 MeV or more energy can photodisintegrate an atom of deuterium"

 

[David lopez]

Are you saying hydrogen is the only
Stable atom that can't be photodisintegrated.

 

[Nik_2213]

As I understand it, not until you get to energies that shake the proton's quarks loose and 'make soup'.
That's a very different process to knocking one or more neutrons, protons, or an alpha particle out of a juicy target nucleus...

 

[David lopez]

So all stable isotopes can be photodisintegrated?

 

[Astronuc]

So all stable isotopes can be photodisintegrated?

Any nuclide can be transmuted by a gamma ray of appropriate energy, usually a photoneutron reaction, or photo-fission for actinide elements. Photo-spallation is possible, but it requires high energy gammas. Gamma energies in nuclear reactors have energies from keV to ~10 MeV, with a small number/fraction between 10 and 12 MeV.

The following paper discusses experiments using 60 to 1100 MeV gammas from brehmsstrahlung.
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/34/018/34018209.pdf

 

[mfb]

Photodisintegration separates the nucleons in the nucleus into multiple (typically 2) daughter nuclei. There is no way to arrange a single object into multiple groups, so you can't have photodisintegration with hydrogen-1.
There are still reactions at very high energies - $p + \gamma \to p + \pi^0$ is a notable one as it limits the energy of protons in cosmic rays (GKZ limit).

brehmsstrahlung

bremsstrahlung

 

[snorkack]

Photodisintegration separates the nucleons in the nucleus into multiple (typically 2) daughter nuclei. There is no way to arrange a single object into multiple groups, so you can't have photodisintegration with hydrogen-1.
There are still reactions at very high energies - $p + \gamma \to p + \pi^0$ is a notable one as it limits the energy of protons in cosmic rays (GKZ limit).
bremsstrahlung

It´´ s not transmutation, though.
You obviously can have reactions like
$p + \gamma \to d + nˇ$
but it does not compete all that well against
$p + \gamma \to p + n + nˇ$