What is the energy dependence of photon cross sections at high energies?

[daisey]

Hello All,

I have read that because the Neutrino has so little mass, and because it is not affected by the Electromagnetic Force that it can travel through light years of solid lead. The photon is also mass-less, I believe. Why can it not do the same as neutrinos? I understand the photon is the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Does that mean the photon is so affected by the force that it represents that it cannot travel through lead as a neutrino can?

 

[malawi_glenn]

yes, the photon has electromagnetic interactions, which is stronger than the weak interaction.

 

[Bob_for_short]

Hello All,

I have read that because the Neutrino has so little mass, and because it is not affected by the Electromagnetic Force that it can travel through light years of solid lead. The photon is also mass-less, I believe. Why can it not do the same as neutrinos? I understand the photon is the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Does that mean the photon is so affected by the force that it represents that it cannot travel through lead as a neutrino can?

A very very energetic photon can travel long way before scattering.

Bob.

 

[ZapperZ]

A very very energetic photon can travel long way before scattering.

Bob.

How energetic? Can an ultra-high energy gamma ray photon penetrate through half an inch of a superconductor. A neutrino can pass through that and more.

Zz.

 

[Bob_for_short]

How energetic? Can an ultra-high energy gamma ray photon penetrate through half an inch of a superconductor. A neutrino can pass through that and more.

Zz.

Yes, it certainly can. A superconducting state cannot prevent a photon from having a very small scattering cross section. A superconductor does not screen the gamma rays.

Bob.

 

[ZapperZ]

Yes, it certainly can. A superconducting state cannot prevent a photon from having a very small scattering cross section. A superconductor does not screen the gamma rays.

Bob.

Can you cite a reference for that, considering that the photon's E-field could be easily shielded by the supercurrent?

Zz.

 

[Vanadium 50]

ZapperZ, the problem is that the supercurrent doesn't "see" frequencies as high (or equivalently as wavelengths as short) as you get in gamma rays (or even x-rays).

 

[hamster143]

The photon couples directly to charged particles, namely, electrons and quarks.

The neutrino doesn't. It interacts by exchanging a W or a Z boson.

If we compare two main mechanisms: scattering of a photon on an electron (Compton scattering), and scattering of a neutrino on an electron, ignoring loop effects and dimensionless factors of magnitude one, we'll see that the amplitude of the first process is ~1/E_{cm}^2 and the amplitude of the second process is ~1/(E_{cm}^2+m_X^2) where m_X is mass of W or Z boson and E_{cm} is center of mass energy. If all energies are high enough to consider electrons massless (>>1 MeV), cross section is proportional to M^2/E_{cm}^2.

Obviously, for energies well below W/Z masses, neutrino-electron cross section will be lower than photon-electron cross section by the factor of (M_X/E_{cm})^4. Comparing a 10 MeV solar neutrino with a 10 MeV photon, we get a factor of 10^16. Which explains why a 10 MeV photon will travel a few centimeters in the matter before stopping, and a 10 MeV neutrino is likely to fly through the Earth without stopping.

 

[Bob_for_short]

What is the energy-dependence of the photon cross section at height E? Doesn't it decrease?

Bob.

 

[ZapperZ]

ZapperZ, the problem is that the supercurrent doesn't "see" frequencies as high (or equivalently as wavelengths as short) as you get in gamma rays (or even x-rays).

That could be it. After all, the AC resistivity certainly goes up with increasing frequency.

Thanks!

Zz.

 

[Bob S]

What is the energy-dependence of the photon cross section at height E? Doesn't it decrease?Bob.

There are three primary ways photons interact with matter: 1) Photoelectron emission. This the highest cross section from 1 or 2 eV up to just beyond the k-shell electron binding energy 2)Comption scattering. Cross section (roughly 2/3 barn. Most dominant cross section up to several MeV. 3) pair production. The most dominant cross section above several MeZV.
There are also photon-nuclear cross sections, such as gamma-n on oxygen, which reaches a maximum (a few barns) between 10 and 20 MeV.