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potmobius
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Can light travel through an atom? If yes, how will it emerge? If no, why not? Will it interact with any subatomic particles?
Many nuclei have photonuclear reactions, such as (photon,neutron) or (photon, alpha particle). For example, photons above about 20 MeV on oxygen-16 will knock a neutron out, leaving radioactive oxygen-15. The cross section is typically a few millibarns.potmobius said:Can light travel through an atom? If yes, how will it emerge? If no, why not? Will it interact with any subatomic particles?
Yeah, but that's an electromagnetic interaction. Photons are not affected by the strong force.potmobius said:hahaha. I'm still a novice at physics, but I'm fascinated by it, and questions like these just seem to pop up into my head every now and then, for no apparent reason! Anyways, I thought photons might be affected by the electrons in the atom, as they might increase the electrons' energy to throw them out of the atom... photoelectric effect, anyone? But, assuming that the incident photons on an atom do manage to make it past the electron cloud without interacting with them, how would they react when they hit the nucleus?
diazona said:Yeah, but that's an electromagnetic interaction. Photons are not affected by the strong force.
I think they would be affected by the weak force, since the W bosons (carriers of the weak force) are charged. I don't know enough offhand to describe that in detail, though.
potmobius said:hahaha. I'm still a novice at physics, but I'm fascinated by it, and questions like these just seem to pop up into my head every now and then, for no apparent reason! Anyways, I thought photons might be affected by the electrons in the atom, as they might increase the electrons' energy to throw them out of the atom... photoelectric effect, anyone? But, assuming that the incident photons on an atom do manage to make it past the electron cloud without interacting with them, how would they react when they hit the nucleus?
potmobius said:Can light travel through an atom?
Vanadium 50 said:Of course it can. Can you see through glass?
potmobius said:okay, explain it using the QM model with waves, and the energy/material uncertainty, or whatever it is...
Photons can knock an electron out of a single atom of gas, with the only final state components being a photoelectron, and a recoil ionized atom. One example would be a 15-eV UV photon ionizing a gaseus hydrogen atom, with a photoelectron and a recoil proton in the final state.malawi_glenn said:photoelectric effect is not a atomic reaction, but a reaction in a solid where the electrons behaves as a collective.
Bob S said:Photons can knock an electron out of a single atom of gas, with the only final state components being a photoelectron, and a recoil ionized atom. One example would be a 15-eV UV photon ionizing a gaseus hydrogen atom, with a photoelectron and a recoil proton in the final state.
In some (most) physics books, photon scattering off an electron (with a photon in final state) is called Compton scattering, and photoelectric when there is no secondary photon. Accelerator builders are now acceleratiing H-minus beams; a single proton with two electrons. The H-minus atom has charge of minus one. A 2-eV photon (red laser) can knock off one electron, leaving a photoelectron and a neutral hydrogen atom. Would you call this a de-ionizing reaction? Seemalawi_glenn said:But that we call Ionizing ;-)
No, photons are not affected by the strong force. They do not have a color charge and therefore do not interact with gluons, which are the carriers of the strong force.
Yes, photons can be affected by the weak force in certain situations. This is because they can interact with particles that have a weak charge, such as W and Z bosons.
The interaction between photons and the weak force is known as the electroweak interaction. This is possible because the weak force is not solely dependent on mass, but also on other properties such as electric charge and weak charge.
No, photons do not carry the strong force. As mentioned earlier, they do not have a color charge and therefore cannot interact with gluons, which are the carriers of the strong force.
Yes, photons can play a role in nuclear interactions through the process of nuclear photoexcitation. This occurs when a photon is absorbed by an atomic nucleus, causing it to become excited and potentially undergo a nuclear reaction.