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My money is on Ludwik, as suggesting the right place to start.
Is the sensor a PM tube, and is the cathode's work function not
temperature dependent?
Is the converter NaI? Is this not very hygroscopic, and possibly
subject to thermal variation of transduction rate?
Is the HT supply subject to leakage? and etc., and etc.
Brian W
On 9/3/2010 12:58 PM, ludwik kowalski wrote:
On Sep 3, 2010, at 12:26 PM, Moses Fayngold wrote:
The question of seasonal variations of decay rates may be very
tricky. For one
thing, do experimental measurements ensure constant Lab conditions
(e.g., fixed
temperature, EM field insulation etc.) in both - the studied sample
and the
detectors - throughout the year?
There are many ways to check for such suspected artifact. One way to
check for the stability NaI detector response would to expse it to
send signals from a generator of light pulses (of constant amplitude
and frequency). They probably did the, during the same experiment,
placing the control peak above the soectrum ending. Or something similar.
Ludwik
If so, and yet the effect, small as it may be,
is confirmed, then we may be facing yet unknown or unaccounted for
seasonal
effect other than temperature, solar wind intensity etc. In this case
it might
be instructive to compare the results obtained simultaneously in the
Northern
and Southern hemispheres. If, as claimed, the decay rate is slightly
faster in
winter than in summer, then one could ask - in winter in what
hemisphere? If in
the northern, would that mean that in the southern one the decay rate
is faster
when we have summer in New York? In other words, in this case we
should observe
not only temporal, but also spatial variation of measurement results
obtained
simultaneously at different latitudes.
Is there any known effect of this kind?
Moses Fayngold,
NJIT
________________________________
Ludwik kowalski <kowalskil@mail.montclair.edu> wrote:
Subject: [Phys-l] Fwd: decay constant variation and solar flares?!
In a message received today someone wrote:
Hi Ludwik,
Have you heard this surprising news about nuclear decay?
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html
Thank you for the link. Here is the essence of the claim:
"Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long
Island and
the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came
across
something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay
rate of
silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation.
The decay
rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer."
Experimental evidence that the rate of radioactive decay remains
constant (in
natural earth environment) is very reliable. But it is not difficult
to change
it. Put a radioactive isotope into the core of a nuclear reactor an
it will
start disappearing faster that outside, due to the bombardment
neutrons. This
idea is at the heart of a project whose aim is destroy highly
radioactive waste.
For more details see:
http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/waste/
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Ludwik
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