[HN Gopher] Uranium magnet (2015)
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       Uranium magnet (2015)
        
       Author : graderjs
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2021-06-14 13:26 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nationalmaglab.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nationalmaglab.org)
        
       | phkahler wrote:
       | I have often wondered about the effect of magnetic fields on
       | nuclear processes like decay rates, or cross-section relative to
       | the applied field. Apparently no such effects have been observed,
       | but not much evidence of that in google searches.
        
         | adrian_b wrote:
         | Both the movement of the nucleons inside nuclei and the
         | movements of the quarks inside nucleons are affected by
         | magnetic fields (because the neutrons have magnetic moments,
         | while the protons and all quarks have both magnetic moments and
         | electric charges), so it is expected that in the presence of
         | magnetic fields there is some splitting of the nuclear energy
         | levels, similar to the splitting of the atomic and molecular
         | energy levels caused by a magnetic field, which can be detected
         | in the atomic and molecular spectra.
         | 
         | The changes in the nuclear energy levels should cause small
         | changes in the decay rates.
         | 
         | Nevertheless, such changes might be too small to be measurable,
         | because for particles that move much slower than the speed of
         | light the magnetic forces are extremely small in comparison
         | with the electric forces and even smaller in comparison with
         | the strong nuclear forces.
         | 
         | The influence of magnetic fields on atomic spectra is very
         | small, even if the electrons move much faster than the
         | nucleons. The changes in nuclear energy levels caused by
         | magnetic fields would be much smaller, while the distances
         | between nuclear energy levels, which determine the decay
         | probabilities, are much larger than in atomic spectra.
         | 
         | It seems very likely that the magnetic effects are too small to
         | be measurable.
        
       | pontifier wrote:
       | I'm really enjoying thinking about all those electrons
       | interacting with a magnetic field. Not sure why I've never tried
       | to simulate that in my head before.
        
         | graderjs wrote:
         | Yeah i know right? Orbitals where a big thing in my chemistry
         | degree, and magnetic fields are basic but until reading this i
         | don't think I'd ever heard or thought about the orbitals
         | changing shape in mag fields. They change shape in reactions
         | and depending on what the element is bound to. Maybe it's only
         | something that happens in the superfields they have there? I
         | don't know. Apparently these U alloys have weird behavior on
         | top of that, too.
        
           | jeffwass wrote:
           | The Zeeman Effect of magnetic fields is usually taught in
           | undergrad-level quantum mechanics classes (physics major
           | track), where a degeneracy of the the solution to
           | Schrodinger's Equation for a hydrogen atom is split into
           | separate levels by the magnetic field. There's a similar
           | effect for electric fields too (the Stark Effect).
        
           | selimthegrim wrote:
           | Should have been covered in your spectroscopy or pchem
           | classes.
        
       | mikeytown2 wrote:
       | If a smaller uranium metal crystal can be made by using a 65
       | Tesla field then this has many applications for things that
       | already uses uranium. Remember that in "energy conversion",
       | pushing the material closer together so neutron capture is more
       | likely is usually desired. Also wondering if this new structure
       | has the same self sharping properties as depleted.
        
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