B Can you create neutronium by colliding electrons and protons?

[arusse02]

Suppose in a Vacuum with no external influences we have two particle accelerators pointed at each other. They're maximally precise and one fires an electron while another fires a proton. Both the electron and proton have the same amount of momentum such that their x-axis velocity completely cancels out, and because the colliders are so precise there is no y or z component velocities either. Relative to the colliders the resulting neutrons have no velocity at all. The timing of firing an electron and proton is perfect as well so the collisions all take place in the same location.

Would you start accumulating neutrons at the collision point and therefore produce neutronium? Because the decay rate is 15 minutes for the neutrons, would you be able to accumulate a large number of neutrons assuming you're firing a lot of electrons and protons?

Would this collection of neutrons be neutronium and how would it behave? What happens to the mass as you start accumulating more neutrons? When would it become a stable mass that would not decay?

 

[DaveC426913]

Not that wiki is a valid reference source for PF, but it might provide a simple primer for more nuanced questions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutronium
esp. the sections on isotopes and properties of neutronium
Did not know about dineutron and trineutron...

 

[Vanadium 50]

Would this collection of neutrons be neutronium

No.

Most of the time the electron will merely scatter.

If the electron interacts, it will make a neutron and a neutrino, so the neutrons will be bouncing around in all sorts of directions.

 

[PeroK]

@arusse02 in the case of classical physics check out Rutherford scattering. For the quantum mechanical case, the uncertainty principle prevents the certainty of a head-on collision.