Re: [Phys-l] Nuclear decays depend on solar distance?

[ludwik kowalski <kowalskil@mail.montclair.edu>]

On Aug 30, 2008, at 1:53 PM, Jeff Loats wrote:

> > > As my colleague said "ok, that qualifies for the weirdest somewhat  
> > > credible
> > > result I've read in a while...".
> > >
> > > http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0808/0808.3283v1.pdf
> > >
> > > The abstract:
> > >
> > > Unexplained periodic fluctuations in the decay rates of 32Si and  
> > > 226Ra have
> > > been reported by groups at Brookhaven National Laboratory (32Si),  
> > > and at the
> > > Physikalisch-Technische-Bundesandstalt in Germany (226Ra). We show  
> > > from an
> > > analysis of the raw data in these experiments that the observed  
> > > fluctuations
> > > are strongly correlated in time, not only with each other, but  
> > > also with the
> > > distance between the Earth and the Sun. Some implications of these  
> > > results
> > > are also discussed,
> > > including the suggestion that discrepancies in published half-life
> > > determinations for these and other nuclides may be attributable in  
> > > part to
> > > differences in solar activity during the course of the various
> > > experiments, or to seasonal variations in fundamental constants.

On Aug 30, 2008, at 7:07 PM, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:
> > The obvious explanation would seem to be that their apparatus is
> > picking up more than just the decay of Si and Ra - some similar
> > particles related to solar wind.

Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> That hypothesis is reasonable. But such correlation would also be
> seen in a control experiment. Unfortunately, nothing is said about a
> detector that was probably used to keep track of the background.

P.S.
I think that this investigation (see the link provided by Jeff) is  
worth replicating. What is needed is a small Ra-226 source (likely to  
be found in a nuclear lab) and a detector of alpha particles-- 
preferably connected to a multichannel analyzer--also common in a  
nuclear lab. The half-life of Ra-226 is ~1600 years and the energy of  
most its alpha particles is close to 5 MeV. Duration of the experiment  
would be one year.

Correlational fluctuations are said to be about 0.1 % of the mean  
value. Random fluctuations, masking correlational fluctuations, would  
have to be much smaller. The counting rate above 10^8 per week (~170  
per second) would guarantee this. That is easy to obtain, even for a  
tiny source near the detector.

It is desirable to use the same detector for measuring radioactivity  
from the source and radioactivity from the background. This can be  
done by removing the source to measure the background and putting it  
back for the next measurement. For example, one week with the source  
followed by another week without the source. A clear yes-or-no answer,  
about the reported correlation, would be available after one solar  
cycle (up to 25 data points in one year). I wish I had a detector to  
perform such experiment. That could be a good student project, even a  
dissertation project.

Ludwik Kowalski, a retired physics teacher
5 Horizon Road, Apt. 2702, Fort Lee, NJ, 07024, USA
Also an amateur journalist at http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/