On Sep 25, 2009, at 3:33 AM, Mauro Lacy wrote:
Here's my best shot at the moment:
http://maurol.com.ar/decay_rates/halflife_bnl+Rx.jpg
I've superposed the graphs. The red line is 1/Sun-Earth
distance^2-1 (distance is now in au, and scaled up vertically), and
the green line is the -x component of the Sun-Earth distance.
A very good match is observed, although not perfect.
I'm thinking that maybe latitude of the experiments can account for
the rest of the difference in phase, and also for the different
experimental results accross different laboratories and
experiments. I'll try to plot light time, ecliptic angle and other
seasonal astronomical factors at the different latitudes. But this
is more time consuming, and I'm short of that at the moment :-)
Best regards,
Mauro
This is a really stunning result!
What is the source for the Brookhaven data? Is there a URL?
My first thought looking at the data is that variations in background
are affecting the apparent decay rate. In other words it is not the
227 keV betas that are changing in decay rate, but rather the
background rate of some other particle, like cosmic ray generated
muons for example. If the counts are performed for a limited
interval at some specific hour every day then the cosmic ray
background can be expected to change because it is anisotropic. The
background variations will have an annual cycle. I would think
Brookhaven folks would check background counts as a control though.
In counting silicon 32 they probably set the beta counting window to
bracket 227 keV. Still, even with a narrow counting energy, the muon
counts will be in background and vary with the season.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
