Paper linking rad decay rate to sun-earth distance?!

[Frank Sanns]

Prediction added to my above post.

Frank Sanns

[Wilfried Heil]

There was one precision experiment to determine the gravity constant, which showed an inexplicable increase on a particular day of the week. I think it was Thursday, which turned out to be the day when the housekeeper would water the lawn.

A periodic change in solar background particles would be a possible explanation for the apparent change in decay rates, i.e. higher background counts. A temperature drift of the detector sensitivity would be another.

H. Schrader from the PTB has collected these results over 15 years and the correlation is obviously there. The cosmic ray background is also closely monitored worldwide and does not follow the same yearly rhythm as the decay rates.

[Carl Willis]

Hi Wilfried,

Seems like you have looked into the "cosmic ray theory" and found that it is lacking:

>The cosmic ray background is also closely monitored worldwide and does not follow the same yearly rhythm as the decay rates.

While the "climatological theory" is another viable option, wouldn't you imagine that these issues would be taken care of? Temperature drift in electronics is one option, humidity and air density would be others (if the beta radiation is counted in air), but these would be pretty obvious and surmountable control issues in the design of the experiment. Where is Dr. Schrader's method printed?

-Carl

[Steven Sesselmann]

My first thought when I read this post was the same as Wilfrieds, that if this experiment was conducted in Germany, the lab probably has a central heating system, that switches off at night, or with the seasons.

Allthough one would hope that these variables had been eliminated.

I recall getting a nice day/night sine wave when I was plotting my vacuum leak over a period of a week, simply because the lab cooled down at night.

Steven

[JohnCuthbert]

If you look at fig 3 in the report (the 266 Ra data) there's a nice sinewave which they seek to explain as related to the sun- earth distance and a big spike of roughly twice the amplitude about 1987, that they don't seem to mention (unless I missed it) . There's also a negative spike about 1998.
It would be interesting to try to think up what might have happened that caused the spikes and see if that sheds any light on the origin of the sinusoid variation.

[Frank Sanns]

John,

The years of those spikes line up with solar minima or just after in sunspot activity and at a time that the magnetic fields of the sun are switching polarity. It is an ~11 year cycle so if the data is real then they should be measuring another spike right about now. The solar minum was just reached in January so this year is prime time to see if the effect will repeat.

Also as the sunspot cycle reaches a minum, the magnetic fields and sunspots are more more aligned with the earth as they are closer to the solar equator.

Frank Sanns

[John Futter]

Richard

I get a consistant error when trying to view this file

Is it still working??

[bpaddock]

John Futter wrote:

> I get a consistant error when trying to view this file

You can download the paper from here,
Astrophysics section of Cornell:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283v1

Pick PDF or PostScript if you have GhostScript/GhostView on the top right.

[bpaddock]

John Futter wrote:

> I get a consistant error when trying to view this file

You can download the paper from here,
Astrophysics section of Cornell:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283v1

Pick PDF or PostScript if you have GhostScript/GhostView on the top right.

[Richard Hull]

I just returned to my work e-mail. This subject is most interesting and we will have a lot of questions as will many scientists.

I have found that some of the largest CME's occur in the waning part of the solar cycle.
I would love to see how these affect the result. We had a couple of monster CME's a couple of years back and boosted my lab's neutron background count 3-4X!! The ticket would be to see a relatively short lived isotope tested during or near a CME.

Before the crowd looking at remediation claims of nuclear materials chimes in, the bulk of such claims are totally bogus and done by folks who haven't got a clue about what they are doing.

I had to tell one guy who approached me saying he remediated U ore to a rayless state, chemically, by noting that he had washed away the bulk of the beta emitting daughters and that his trusty CV-700 would not see the remaining U alphas.

This was noted early in the 1900's when Sir William Crooks rendered uranium "rayless" by perciptating out the heavy beta emitters, short lived.Th234 and Pa234 from urnaium metal.

Carl's own U extraction results were not very active until the samples I obtained were 4-5 months old when all the above isotopes had "grown" back into the samples.

I also do not attach any link or significance to this paper's results associated to the variable nature of the CANR-LENR results. As the results are most likely do to more gross elements within the experiments themselves.

I found the paper fascinating and pregnant with possiblities. The root cause will either amuse us mightily when found as error on behalf of the researchers or change a lot of notions about stars and matter at some significant level.

Richard Hull

[tligon]

What kinds of experiments could be done to test the suspected effects in the laboratory?

Can we produce (or exploit an existing source) neutrinos at a flux comparable to the solar flux?

Rather than rely on radiation counters, can we do sampling of isotopic abundance over a long period using mass spectrometers, as is done for isotope dating? That should eliminate short-term instrument effects, and you can incorporate calibration standards (stable elements of known isotope abundance) in the samples.

I have no idea how we would manipulate the fine structure constant (it is supposed to be constant, after all), but we can presumably measure it. Can we reliably measure it during the course of a year?

Could an experiment be piggybacked on a deep space probe? What would happen if we had a suitable instrument heading for one of the outer planets and beyond? Or do we have something suitable already out there from which we could extract applicable data?

[Frank Sanns]

There are neutrino experiments her on earth, Fermilab for one that could produce a good flux but there is no guarantee that it is neutrinos that are responsible. It could be systematic error but it could be real. Time and repeat experiments and set-ups will tell.

You have the right idea though not to the outer planet but to the sun with a probe. If it is a phenomenon that follows the inverse square law then the effects would become much more pronounced very quickly as a probe would approach the sun. Solar heatng would go up quickly too and have to be dealt with. An isotope on board with three or four detectors with various shieldings would prove an interesting experiment.

Frank Sanns

[Chris Bradley]

Here is a suggestion that has just occurred to me. It may be nothing, it may be a factor, it may be the answer - just throwing it into the pot:

Total solar flux to earth's surface is lower during winter months (whilst perihelion is around January 4th), which implies that the cosmic ray shadow that the sun casts on the earth is less, hence more sea-level cosmic rays are expected in winter.

Simple scientific resolution to determine - see if the relationship is reversed in the southern hemisphere (i.e. is the same for local winter/summer).

best regards,

Chris MB.

[Wilfried Heil]

Richard has thrown in a tough nut to crack here. I heard about the PTB results some time ago and stuffed them away under unsolved oddities. So thanks for bringing it up again.

The experiment used a number of ionisation chambers to detect the decay of a beta emitter, whose decay constant was to be determined. The chambers were spiked with a small amount of Ra-226, an alpha emitter at 4.87 MeV. This was used as a calibration standard with an essentially constant decay rate. The decay constant of e.g. Eu-152 was then determined against the Radium standard. Only the relation of the two was of interest, not the actual count rates for each isotope. It was apparently assumed that environmental changes would affect both count rates in the same way.

Looking at the raw data then revealed the yearly oscillations of the Ra-226 count rate.

As one can see, the maximum in the count rate lags behind the earth perihel by about 1-2 months, just as the temperature usually does (it is coldest in January and February). The amplitude of the oscillation does not follow 1/r^2 either, but is about 30% smaller, so this relation could be coincidental.

The solar "cosmic ray" activity follows the 11 year solar cycle, but their intensities are quite erratic on a shorter timescale. They don't seem to qualify as the cause of the observed oscillations.

Whatever the reason for this may be, my best guess is that the researchers at PTB have unwittingly built a detector that doubles as a fancy barometer or thermometer, at the 0.1% level of its scale. Other experiments with a comparable setup elsewhere would then give similar results.

Repeating such an experiment on the southern hemisphere would show quickly if the decay rate oscillated with the same phase as in the north or against it.

[DaveC]

I've been digesting the paper's analysis, since Richard posted it. (Thanks, Richard!)

It seems to me, that a simple plot of the decay rate ratios of both the BNL and PTB data against the (1/R)^2 values of earth - sun distance, should yield a line, whose functionality would indicate whether these were strictly proportional or otherwise.

The implications are fascinating. If indeed the decay rate is influenced...(dare we say "caused') by something of stellar(solar) production , moving toward the Sun would accelerate the decay rate... and hasten the path toward end state stability.

Moving to a lower influence, would arrest the decay process...some or more (?).

I've mulling over what evidence there is for the basic conclusion that the decay rate Is or was or should invariant, in the first place.
A review of the basic papers leading to these conclusions is as important as the conclusions themselves.

Decay rate calculations seem very much less definite than say the null results of the Michelson-Morley Ether Drift experiments. Getting decay constants out to 6 or 8 decimal places takes a long time... and long term stability of anything we use as instruments comes into play as a basic spoiler.

Dave Cooper

[tligon]

IIRC, decay rates are known, at least in some cases, to respond to pressure. Compressing radioactive rocks, for example in the foundations of skyscrapers, is supposed to measurably increase decay rates.

I think the presumption is what happens in a compact nucleus is nearly divorced from the outside world. However, clearly you can affect decay by injecting the right disturbance (a neutron, for example). Decay is supposed to be all about the chances of all the various wave functions coming together at the right time and place to pop the loose piece off. It really ought to be possible to encourage the process. How well the root assumption holds up depends on how isolated the nucleus is from outside influences.

If the influence were cosmic rays, the effect should be diurnal as well as annual. It is difficult to believe tidal forces could do it. Neutrinos will go right thru Earth, but they should go right thru the nucleus many orders of magnitude easier.

The question boils down to this: If God really does play dice with the universe, are they loaded? Ya gotta learn how the cheats work before you place too many bets.

This should be fun to watch. Either they'll find an embarrasing instrumentation problem, or something new in Physics.

[Wilfried Heil]

At least the spontaneous decay mode of electron capture 'EC' has been shown to vary a bit with the chemical compound in which the radioactive isotope is contained.

It depends, obviously, on the availability of an electron near the nucleus that can be captured. A crystal structure that favors p or sp orbitals will enhance the decay rate, because electrons on these orbitals move directly past the nucleus rather than circle around it. The environmental effect is small however.

[Richard Hull]

All this falls back on the nucleus at the core level for beta and alpha decays. Unless we are willing accept electron cloud perterbances as affecting the nucleus to the level of changing its decay constant, then the decay rate is 100% nuclear in nature.

So much of what we believe is at stake here. We look, traditionally, at the nucleus as a physically tiny entity surrounded at great relative range from even the first electron shell, yet electron capture is easy when the nucleus needs to steal an electron.

We have no real physical handle on all of this in a classical mechanical sense and ever since the uncertainty principle and quantum tunneling became as the accepted norm, all deterministic, mechanistic processes imaginable at the nuclear level have just flown out the window. What processes go on in the nucleus and atom are whatever the theorists and mathematical machinations at any particular moment in time say they are.

The science is interpreted by those sufficiently holy and annointed in ways just slightly more acceptable than a cardinal's conclave to determine what the dogma for the faithful shall be. There are no calipers that the hand may grasp, only mathematically precise generalities as we go deeper. It all gets curiouser and curiouser.

If this effect is real, the cardinals will explain it all in a fashion that will, hopefully for them, not have to disturb the dogma already in place to such a degree that more faith in what appears to be the magical and the mysterious gets yet farther from day to day mechanical realities.

I worry that at some point they will just pat us on the head and say....

" Now, now, the sky is not falling. You need only leave such matters to us, for it is all far beyond your kin and this is our job to know and wonder about. You need only listen to us and believe, for we are atuned to the master's voice and will; having turned our lives over to interpreting his works for you and presenting them in a manner sufficient to your needs. " (pat,pat).

The complete disconnect in science from mechanistic explanation seems only too near to me. I fear we have traveled on a great circle of navigation back towards a religious faith based on mathematics and interpretation by authority. A long and fateful journey from a pre-renaissance blind belief system of world order to a modern one.... An illuminated belief system of world order where the word priest is replaced by scientist.

Pardon the diatribe........

If we labor under the idea that there is something real in the conclusion of this paper and that some"thing" in or about the sun can control internal nuclear processes and decay rates at a range of 90 million miles, then a great reshuffle may be at hand.

Finally what would all this portend about cross sections for fusion on the sun? Any affect? I put forth that this is far too easy an experiment to not stick onto an already planned planetary robotic or surveying/mapping mission.

Take a carefully prepaired Co60 sample, divide it in two. Measure both samples for one year to determine a differential decay rate constant, if any. Launch one of the samples and take continuous readings as the craft transits.

Richard Hull

[Frank Sanns]

Richard I agree the only difference is I would have more replicate samples and of at least 2 isotopes and with different modes of decay and launch it off and measure it out there and retrieve it too if at all possible. It may be noise but there may be something there. The part that is most interesting to me is not really the solar flux numbers but the fact that something very significant is going on within the sun during the periods in Figure #3 and that is the magnetic field is in complete transit. A complete reversal. Something unique happens with that occures in a star and there is a chance that it somehow affects things in ways that we do not understand. Even the inverse square law need not necessarily be obeyed for such a new effect.

My gut tells me it is systematic error in the measurements but the scientist in me tells me that some effect is twice as significant than the easily explained so it is clear than more work should be done to find if it is fact or poor technique. The most damning data against some totally new effect is the negative swing in the last cycle. I say launch ye into space and see forth is returned.

Frank Sanns


Richard Hull wrote:
>
> If we labor under the idea that there is something real in the conclusion of this paper and that some"thing" in or about the sun can control internal nuclear processes and decay rates at a range of 90 million miles, then a great reshuffle may be at hand.
>
> Finally what would all this portend about cross sections for fusion on the sun? Any affect? I put forth that this is far too easy an experiment to not stick onto an already planned planetary robotic or surveying/mapping mission.
>
> Take a carefully prepaired Co60 sample, divide it in two. Measure both samples for one year to determine a differential decay rate constant, if any. Launch one of the samples and take continuous readings as the craft transits.

[Larry Upjohn]

Hi all;
I have a proposal that would involve some "data mining" so to speak. Much effort has gone into building systems to detect and possibly count solar neutrino flux. Much of this experimental effort has been to eliminate as much terrestrial neutrino (from manmade fission sources) noise as well as other particulate and electromagnetic noise from the detector arrays. Therefore lots of recorded back ground data must have been collected to select data collection sites and refine this instrumentation once positioned. How about going back to this data and evaluating it for coorelations to solar distance. I would think that such back ground data would be voluminous and well characterized for radioactive decay components and since much of these experiments have very long time frames (some are 20 plus years in length) solar cycles should be detectable by relatively simple data mining studies. As this is mostly software work with only data collection and analysis costs, timeframes to results could be optimized. Let us get the most for our tax payer funded research! More later, Larry Upjohn

P.S. See the Neutrino Wikipedia for lots of background. LRU>