ABSTRACT
In elastic scattering reactions, the total kinetic energy of the neutron and the target nucleus are conserved. When Ernest Rutherford first derived his formula, he assumed that the scattering of alpha particles from an atomic nucleus could be modeled by a Coulomb force term and treated as a particle orbit. Rutherford’s formula was a fundamental breakthrough in the field of atomic physics at the time because it matched the data that Geiger and Marsden had acquired several years earlier ’s formula was a fundamental breakthrough in the field of atomic physics at the time because it matched the data that Geiger and Marsden had acquired several years earlier. In the core, there are four fundamental ways that neutrons can “interact” with an atomic nucleus when their wave functions overlap. These modes of interaction include: elastic scattering, inelastic scattering, absorption and capture, and nuclear fission.
