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> Actually it's pretty easy to generate intense neutrino beams. You just have to accelerate protons and smash them into a lead wall. This produces all kinds of
by deftnerd 6y ago
> Actually it's pretty easy to generate intense neutrino beams. You just have to accelerate protons and smash them into a lead wall. This produces all kinds of particles, including for instance muons. Since muons are charged, you can filter and focus them into a beam using magnets, and then they rapidly decay in flight, producing a beam of neutrinos going in the same direction.
That's pretty fascinating. When the protons hit the lead wall, are there any other "messy" particles created that are problematic? Filtering and focusing the muons might be relatively easy to handle, but what about the other kinds of particles that will be created?
- jjk166 6y agoBy selecting the energy of the proton beam correctly, you can prevent much besides the muons from being produced. Whatever other particles do show up - if not guided by carefully set up electromagnetic fields - will quickly smash into the walls of the device, generating heat as they scatter and decay. Some of this heat can be used to boil a coolant and regenerate energy, but for the most part it is just an inefficiency. The lead wall and some of the material around it will become radioactive waste as some long lived isotopes are produced, but they could potentially have many years of service life.