Discuss QuantumHeat.org http://www.quantumheat.org Sat, 04 Apr 2026 02:46:18 +0000 JComments http://www.quantumheat.org#comment-8614 1E6 m/s and would statistically be 8.8E8 meters away for the mean time to decay - twice the distance to the moon. If, for some reason, the reaction created abundant thermal neutrons in the 1eV range, such neutrons have a velocity of about 1E4 m/s; so the mean distance for neutron decay is 8.8E6 meters, or about the diameter of the Earth away. Now, what about cold and ultra-cold neutrons? First, they would be unlikely to be created by spallation. But, if they were created in large numbers, long before they decayed, they would be captured by the nuclei of the metals of the reactor because at such low velocities the capture cross-section for a neutron is very high. In such a circumstance, it is not clear what the emission would be (would depend on the metal), but it would not be the neutron decay spectrum that would be observed."]]> Robert Greenyer Thu, 16 Jun 2016 18:54:28 +0000 http://www.quantumheat.org#comment-8614