I read that lightning creates gamma rays, but i'm not sure if it would be possible to have a capacitor that powerful to make a gamma ray.
If this is possible, how efficient would such a process be?
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Note that there are two conventions regarding gamma rays vs X-rays. The older convention distinguishes them by energy, but the modern convention distinguishes them by how they are produced. See https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/561217/123208 for details. – PM 2Ring Sep 05 '21 at 07:45
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@PM2Ring - depends on the field. As I recall astronomy uses a 10MeV limit for x-rays. Of course they have a hard time determining how the photon was produced. – Jon Custer Sep 05 '21 at 14:47
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@Jon 100 keV, as I said in the linked answer, but what's 2 orders of magnitude between friends ;) FWIW, most of the important gamma photons in astrophysics are thermal, but of course we don't observe them, since they're in the cores of large stars. (And hydrogen fusion also makes a few gammas, from positron annihilation). – PM 2Ring Sep 05 '21 at 21:49
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i'm not sure if it would be possible to have a capacitor that powerful to make a gamma ray.
Gamma rays re produced in interactions of elementary and charged quantum mechanically described particles.
A capacitor is a system where an electric field is induced in the space between plates.
There are no high energy interactions in a charged capacitor.
If a charged particle is scattered off the electric field of the capacitor, given the energy of the particle and the magnitude of the field the particle may scatter off the field and produce a gamma. .Here is a list of how gamma rays can be produced.
anna v
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Do you think that maybe a combination of the capacitor and a cathode ray could do that? – Tyler Sep 05 '21 at 20:41
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Sure, but it cannot compete with the presently proposed gamma ray sources. See where the research has gone https://phys.org/news/2020-06-extremely-brilliant-giga-electron-volt-gamma-rays.html – anna v Sep 06 '21 at 04:17