B What Are the Dangers of Spectral Lines from EM Sources?

[braxton]

TL;DR Summary

Hello, I'm working on building a particle accelerator. There is a 6mm Quartz Sphere stone located near the target where electrons collide producing what I'm assuming to be an emissions/absorption spectrum of some sort? I'm really new at science in general. I'm just wondering if anything (elements, energy levels,etc) can be identified by the lines being emitted from the crystal.

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to PF.

How much interior volume does this particle accelerator have, and how hard of a vacuum are you pulling for that volume? What is the value of your high voltage power supply? What kind of X-ray shielding are you currently using?

 

[braxton]

Welcome to PF.

How much interior volume does this particle accelerator have, and how hard of a vacuum are you pulling for that volume? What is the value of your high voltage power supply? What kind of X-ray shielding are you currently using?

Right now i do not have a vacuum set up, I have been working on a housing so I can accomplish that, so right now it is just open/exposed to atmosphere. The target area is approx 4 cubic inches. I disassembled a car battery and made many 1 inch thick sealed Lead blankets, in between the blankets I also have 1 inch thick wax blocks and sitting in front of all of that I filled up empty milk bottles with water because I was getting readings on the Geiger counter of 1000CPM intermittently, there was some spikes a few times at 2000 and 3000 CPM. The voltage of the power supply is 20,000 volts.

 

[Vanadium 50]

A, You should look up x-ray fluorescence.
B. If you are trying to accelerate electrons in air, you probably can't. Sure something else may be happening, heaven knows what.
As a rule. the order is study, design, construct and operate, in that order.
C. Lots of people come here saying they want to build a particle accelerator. Few if any do it safely. Most end up getting their threads closed.

 

[braxton]

A, You should look up x-ray fluorescence.
B. If you are trying to accelerate electrons in air, you probably can't. Sure something else may be happening, heaven knows what.
As a rule. the order is study, design, construct and operate, in that order.
C. Lots of people come here saying they want to build a particle accelerator. Few if any do it safely. Most end up getting their threads closed.

Thank you so much for replying and trying to help me out! I'm really not trying to come here to find out how to build one as I already have the set up I'm using. I'm more or less trying to get ideas of what some of the products I'm seeing that are being produced are, e.g ( the straight lines emitting from the stone, radiations, etc... ) I definitely don't want to have any of the threads I post closed. What causes people to have the threads closed?

 

[braxton]

Also, why couldn't or why would it be hard to accelerate electrons without a vacume?

 

[berkeman]

What causes people to have the threads closed?

In the case of trying to build particle accelerators, we do not allow dangerous discussions at PF. So when we have folks who know little about hard vacuum and its dangers, and know little about how to work with high voltages safely, and don't understand that accelerators generate x-rays, those thread typically get tied off.

And even in the case when a poster is well-versed in all of that, if it looks like a less-experience PF user may come along at a later date and try to do the same things, that can be dangerous as well.

 

[braxton]

In the case of trying to build particle accelerators, we do not allow dangerous discussions at PF. So when we have folks who know little about hard vacuum and its dangers, and know little about how to work with high voltages safely, and don't understand that accelerators generate x-rays, those thread typically get tied off.

Ok, I understand high voltage and how to work with it. And I understand things hitting a target at high velocity can create x-rays or gamma, etc. That's why I have the Shielding as well as placed multiple types of it e.g lead, wax,water because for example neutrons will pass through lead easy, but to properly "moderate" them you need things like parrafin, water, or something with a large hydrogen content. I get all of that, but I haven't explored the vacume part of it other than it reduces the scattering.

 

[braxton]

Safety is 1st and in order for you to be safe you need to have an understanding of what is going on. If we dont understand what is happening or the dangers of doing certain things we could easily wind up like Thomas Edison's apprentice/helper who spent countless hours in front of x-rays and didn't know he was being hit with all kinds of damaging rays witch eventually lead to the amputation of his limbs and ultimately his death.

 

[Baluncore]

Also, why couldn't or why would it be hard to accelerate electrons without a vacume?

Because the Mean Free Path of an electron or ion in the atmosphere is very short. That will prevent accumulation of energy in the one particle alone, the one you assumed was being accelerated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_free_path

The word "volume" is first encountered in technical discussions, followed by a similar sounding word that is spelled quite differently, "vacuum". I can confirm that you are new to the literature of vacuum systems.

"A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library". Crampon, Jean E. 1988.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Neutrons?
Hmmm...

Why do you think you have (or even want) neutrons? Nuclear binding is typically 8 MeV per nucleon, so you need a few MeV to produce neutrons? (You probably aren't running the exceptions like deuterium, tritium or uranium, and in many cases you sure shouldn't be.(

The Fermilab LINAC has a gradiant of about 1 MeV/m. A reasonable goal might be half that, so 8 MeV means 50 feet long. Are you starting with something so big? If so, why?

Further, x-rays are coming off everything with high voltage, not just the target, If you have a kilovolt to ground, you will have x-rays. How many? Maybe not many, maybe a lot. You have to measure them.

 

[berkeman]

Thread closed for safety reasons.