Does a neutron produce radiation when it accelerates?

[vitality00]

How do scientists see it if it doesn't produce radiation theoretically since it does not have a positive or negative charge. What affect does not having a charge make a neutron differ from an electron and proton?

[swansont]

It scatters or is absorbed and you can see the results of those interactions; in some general ways this is not so different from detecting photons, which are also uncharged. One method I recall is you can have energetic neutrons strike paraffin, which has lots of hydrogen in it, and you scatter the protons out when the neutrons hit them. Then you can easily detect the protons. Neutron activation is another interaction that shows that you have neutrons — a nucleus absorbs a neutron and the new isotope is radioactive. That's how some neutron dosimeters work — IIRC the ones I used were a slim piece of iron or nickel, and they'd be able to tell what the dose was by activation. (Unfortunately, those are not particularly sensitive, so this would be determining the neutron dose that killed you, as part of a disaster post-mortem)

[Enthalpy]

One common detector has nuclei that absorb neutrons and radiate immediately an electron (one gadolinium isotope) or a proton (³He). Then the electron or proton is detected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_detection

 

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The magnetic moment of the neutron should radiate when the neutron accelerates. This radiation must be seriously inefficient and unuseable. For instance the spin flip of neutral hydrogen's proton at 21cm takes millions of years instead of nanoseconds, so radiation by the magnetic moment is obviously tiny.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Enthalpy