How come there are no neutron atoms?

[TheNerf]

Straight forward question. What would prevent the process of a giant lump of neutrons from forming a stable nucleus?

 

[mgb_phys]

The strong nuclear force
Because neutrons have the same spin they cannot occupy the same energy level, so a nucleus of just neutrons can't get into the lowest energy state and so isn't stable,

Neutron stars could be thought of as a single nucleus of just neutrons - but they need gravity (and a lot of it) to hold them together

 

[DaveC426913]

There has been some talk about an element 0 - a nucleus with only neutrons. Wiki has some things to say on this neutronium element.

 

[mathman]

Stand alone neutrons decay into proton + electron + neutrino.

 

[mssmatthelhc]

O.K,what sort of "atom" should we get from an uncharged nucleus?.What sort of chemistry would you expect?.Study the issue.Read Pais,"Inward Bound" and study the references at the chapter ends.Imagine a world with electromagnetism "switched-off",and then compare the proton/neutron.Are they different in such a world?,...,why is the quark-model such a good classification scheme?.Read Riordan "The Hunting Of The Quark".Study,...