Technically you would be correct.
Technically I am correct, there's no would be about this.
Different bullet same gun, same result.
It's really unfortunate that you have started comparing nuclear physics with guns, as guns are the domain of Newtonian physics, whereas nuclear and particle physics are the domain of quantum mechanics. So different bullet, different physics, different result.
How does Spallation reduce the neutron radiation on the surface of the moon?
Didn't say it did. The post you referred to as my pile tells you that I agree with you that the relevant radiation is indeed secondary neutrons. I don't agree with you on the radioactive element.
Bombardment from GCR does not necessary make for swathes of radioisotopes, and if it did, you would need to compute the half life of those isotopes. If the GCR reactions do indeed create radioisotopes in abundance does it necessarily mean these isotopes are radioactive for centuries or millennia?
The scientists in particle accelerators work and maintain equipment that use particles with GCR energies, and that equipment has been exposed to proton beams with far greater fluxes than GCR.
Do their detectors become radioactive to the degree where they cannot work on them?The issue you have is that you do have a different bullet, and while nuclear fragmentation does occur, the main issue with GCR bombardment is the neutron and pion radiation. The interactions that occur between GCR and the target material are known as electromagnetic, mesonic and nucleonic. In nucleonic interactions secondary neutrons are produced as the target nuclei recoil.
What you don't have a grasp on is the way in which particles and nuclei interact at very high energies. Not every interaction is like a billiard ball where the nuclei break up. There are issues that relate to areas of cross section. These cross sections are defined by the Coulomb fields, the energy of bosons and coupling constants rather than geometrical areas.
A proton in the GCR may pass near the nucleus, and quantum interactions take place through bosons. The bosons are force carriers in physics. This could involve a recoil event through the electromagnetic force, or involve spallation, energy loss through bremstrahlung. There are a multitude of events that potentially take place, but these depend very highly on probability density functions that are determined by cross sections of interaction. The latter depends very much on particle energy.
We discussed this way back, but your ideas that every interaction between a proton and a nucleus involve the production of radio isotopes is very far from the real physics
In the case of fission, that is more the domain of heavier elements and thermal; neutron capture, where the fission products are varied and generally associated with heavy elements that have a broad range of radio isotopes.
GCR's are the source of the neutrons and the radioactivity of the moon's surface.
I agree with the part in bold.
