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I need urgent help! we have a beam made of some neutrons and some photons. I thought about the beryllium polycrystaline but I'm not really sure it could work. The beam has an energy of 2 MeV moreless. Sorry for my spoken english.
- Bragg reflection of photons with a really tiny angle.
- A thin layer of (amorphous?) material with low Z - neutrons will either pass through nearly unaffected or get a large deflection angle, while most photons will pass through roughly in their initial direction. This does not give a nice neutron-free beam of photons but it leads to some separation.
While neutrons have no electric charge, they do have a magnetic moment. With a strong enough magnetic field and large enough distance you could deflect the neutrons while leaving photons totally unaffected. I'm not sure how strong it would have to be for 2 MeV neutrons though, possibly unfeasible.
Neutrons have a magnetic moment of ~10-26J/T. If you somehow manage to get a field gradient of 1000 T/m, this gives a force of 10-23 N or an acceleration of 6000 m/s2. To get a deflection by 1° at ~20,000km/s neutron speed, you need ~300km/s or 50s acceleration time, which gives a convenient length of 1 million kilometers for your deflecting structure.
No problem, just stick your detector on a satellite at the L2 Lagrange point and you're all set! :)
I think I should start by mentioning I'm not qualified to answer this question. Would it be possible to scatter the neutrons without effecting the photons by passing the beam through something like Radon gas?
Neutrons interact with nuclei, and photons interact with electrons. You won't find nuclei without electrons.
I see. Thanks.Look upthread.