Neutronium

[Jacques]

I called neutronium the matter inside a neutron star.

I was wondering if we could take a teaspon of neutronium, and bring it outside of the gravitationnal field of the star, what would happen ?

I know that it would be almost impossible to do that, a teaspon would weight many tons here on earth and I have problem to imagine how it would weigth on the neutron star !

Will the neutronium turn into a neutron soup and neutron decay into a proton and an electron and form hydrogene H1-1 ? Will it create super heavy hydrogen isotope like for example H1-10 ?

Just curious

[AlphaSheeppig]

A teaspoonful of it would weigh around 2.5e+12 kg... Although I have absolutely no idea what would happen to it. A neutron soup is my bet, but I can't back that up with anything...

[swansont]

Once the force drops below that necessary to overcome the degeneracy pressure, the neutrons would be free to decay. The resulting protons would repel and the collection would tend to disintegrate, but owing to the relatively long half-life, I don't think it would be particularly spectacular.

[Moontanman]

I bet it would be spectacular enough that you wouldn't want to be near by when the teaspoon was taken outside the gravity field, just think what would happen if you had a teaspoon of element 125 or something like that, the spontaneous disintegration would be like a small nuclear explosion!

Edited June 6, 2011 by Moontanman

[swansont]

Element 125 would have a half-life of milliseconds at best, vs ~ten minutes.

[Moontanman]

Even with a half life of ten minutes a million tons of neutrons crowded into a teaspoon sized drop would be a bomb for sure. Then you would have the whole expansion thing due to lack of gravity holding them together, talk about a neutron bomb!

[Mr Skeptic]

I think it would disintegrate fairly quickly, especially at the start. I certainly would not like to be anywhere in the vicinity.

[intrepid_wander]

Maybe a 2 MeV/s charge to each "Neutronium" atom might "re-couple" the neutrinos to eliminate the neutron decay?

 

Just a thought.

 

Is there a better detection method of neutrinos, other than the heavy water/PMT concept?

[Jacques]

I was thinking about how we would takeout that neutronium from the star.

How much energy would it take to extract the mass of an iron atom from the surface ?

Would it be the same energy that the original atoms emited during there life into the star and during the supernova explosion ?

Also it would be a gradual process: you need time to climb out the gravity well. Then not all neutrons will get a chance to decay at the same time. Heavy isotopes may form ...

[Jacques]

Ok let estimate the work needed to extract the mass of one neutron from the surface

using

F=G*m1*m2/r^2

G is gravitational constant

m1 is mass of neutron star = 2 solar mass = 4*10^30 kg

m2 is mass of a neutron = 1.67*10^-27 kg

r is radius of neutron star = 5000 m

F=1.8*10^-14 Newton

 

Using Arthur Clark simplified calculation for the energy given to a payload's mass when lifted from the ground up out of the gravity well ( http://home.earthlink.net/~jedcline/workenergy.html )

Arthur C. Clarke many decades ago pointed out that the theoretical amount of energy needed to lift a mass up from the earth's surface out into far distant space is mathematicly equivalent to the energy needed to lift that mass up one planetary radius' altitude within a constant gravitational acceleration equal to that located at the planet's surface. (Ref "The Exploration of Space" by Arthur C. Clarke. Harper edition.)

 

W=F*r

9*10^-11 Joule

Transforming Joule to electron volt

9*10^-11 / 1.6*10^-19=562 500 000

or 562.5 MeV

That give more than half the mass of the neutron

The energy release by the beta decay is very small compared to what would be needed to extract neutronium.

Are you sure that gravity is the weakess of the four fondamentals forces ?

[granpa]

neutronium armor would probably not be stable but if it was stable

then it might just have the extraordinary property of being totally impenetrable.

 

Since the strong force increases with distance

then energy sufficient to stretch the armor would create more neutronium

with the result that the armor would stretch forever but never brake.

 

that would be some very useful armor to have.

 

BTW, one square meter of neutronium armor would weigh one metric ton.

(the mass of one cubic meter of water)

Edited June 6, 2011 by granpa

[Light Storm]

I bet it would expand

 

lol... I don't know anything about the material, sorry, that was a JOKE!

 

But I do think a teaspoon of anything taken from a star would be insanely unstable.

[Moontanman]

neutronium armor would probably not be stable but if it was stable

then it might just have the extraordinary property of being totally impenetrable.

 

Since the strong force increases with distance

then energy sufficient to stretch the armor would create more neutronium

with the result that the armor would stretch forever but never brake.

 

that would be some very useful armor to have.

 

BTW, one square meter of neutronium armor would weigh one metric ton.

(the mass of one cubic meter of water)

 

How thin would this one metric ton of neutronium have to be for it to be one square meter?

[granpa]

one neutron thick

[insane_alien]

neutronium armor would probably not be stable but if it was stable

then it might just have the extraordinary property of being totally impenetrable.

 

Since the strong force increases with distance

then energy sufficient to stretch the armor would create more neutronium

with the result that the armor would stretch forever but never brake.

 

false, that applies to quarks within neutrons not to neutrons themselves. otherwise fission would be impossible

[swansont]

neutronium armor would probably not be stable but if it was stable

then it might just have the extraordinary property of being totally impenetrable.

 

My electron beam is betting that you are wrong.

[John Cuthber]

So does my big neutronium hammer.