2014/07/15 by Jonathan Nistor, J. M. Nistor, J. M. Heim +10 · 2 citations
Decision Sciences · Health Professions · Physics and Astronomy · #Radioactive Decay and Measurement Techniques #Radioactivity and Radon Measurements #Scientific Measurement and Uncertainty Evaluation #hep-ph #nucl-ex #physics.ins-det
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1407.4144
10 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to Nucl. Instrum. Methods A
arxiv created 2014/07/15 · arxiv updated 2014/07/17
A series of recent reports suggest that the decay rates of several isotopes may have been influenced by solar activity (perhaps by solar neutrinos). A mechanism in which neutrinos or antineutrinos can influence the decay process suggests that a sample of decaying nuclei emitting neutrinos could affect its own rate of decay. Past experiments have searched for this 'self-induced decay' (SID) effect by measuring deviations from the expected decay rate for highly active samples of varying geometries. Here, we show that the SID effect closely resembles the behavior of rate-related losses due to dead-time, and hence that standard dead-time corrections can result in the removal of any SID-related behavior. We conclude by describing experiments which could disentangle SID effects from those arising from dead-time.