Do nuclear decay rates depend on our distance from the sun?

The Physics Arxiv Blog ^ | August 29th, 2008 | KFC

[B-Chan]

Here’s an interesting conundrum involving nuclear decay rates.

We think that the decay rates of elements are constant regardless of the ambient conditions (except in a few special cases where beta decay can be influenced by powerful electric fields).

So that makes it hard to explain the curious periodic variations in the decay rates of silicon-32 and radium-226 observed by groups at the Brookhaven National Labs in the US and at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesandstalt in Germany in the 1980s.

Today, the story gets even more puzzling. Jere Jenkins and pals at Purdue University in Indiana have re-analysed the raw data from these experiments and say that the modulations are synchronised with each other and with Earth’s distance from the sun. (Both groups, in acts of selfless dedication, measured the decay rates of silicon-32 and radium-226 over a period of many years.)

In other words, there appears to be an annual variation in the decay rates of these elements.

Jenkins and co put forward two theories to explain why this might be happening.

First, they say a theory developed by John Barrow at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Douglas Shaw at the University of London, suggests that the sun produces a field that changes the value of the fine structure constant on Earth as its distance from the sun varies during each orbit. Such an effect would certainly cause the kind of an annual variation in decay rates that Jenkins and co highlight.

[B-Chan]

Hmm. I did a Title search under “nuclear decay rates” and nothing came up. My apologies for the duplicate post.

[djf]

Puthoff and Sakharov vindicated?

[UCANSEE2]

“Given the standard idea of our planet having formed from swirling masses of solar material, you’d expect all the heavy metals to be at the center and nowhere near the surface.”

There are several reasons they appear near the surface.

[Gondring]

That’s why God made grad students.

[UCANSEE2]

“The Earth is actually about 3 million miles closer to the Sun during northern hemisphere *winter*. “

While true, many would insist it should be the other way around.

And it has been the other way around, a long time ago.

Which is part of the reason that continents in the Northern Hemisphere were covered with ice.

[ASA Vet]

I did a Title search

The search function died about ten days ago.

[Getready]

I heard these fluctuations might be due to sometin’ called
“quantum tunneling”....what always made me wonder was why
did one particular atom(call it Atom A) decay when the
one next to it(atom B) didn’t? Also, how does one know
when Atom A was produced, and when Atom B was produced.
Could the decay of Atom A prevent the Decay of atom B, or
could atom B cause the decay of Atom A?
If so, it could argue to extraneous causes for decay, hence
degrading the axiom that radioactive decay is useful as a
chronometer. What about massive cosmic radiation events
from pulsars, or supernovas, or sunstorms, could those
effect decay rates?
Could a massive spacetime “convulsion” reset the
radioactive clocks???

[SunkenCiv]

adding, not pinging, because duplicate. And may I just commend B-Chan, this is about the most unlikely duplicate topic in FR history (so far). :')

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and

[Getready]

As I’ve said before, it’s related to the
oxymoronic cosmic ying-yang forces juxtaposed through
the Yau-calabi spacetime continuum in the 22nd
dimension. Now what don’t you understand?

[ETL]

each one has minimal cross section sure, but where do you think they come from and what do you think they cause when then do interact with matter? When you have a hot enough reactor, which is what the sun is, enough get put out for some to interact. And their sig is monkeying with weak force reaction rates.

But if the chances of a neutrino striking even one atom in a given sample of matter are so enormous, how can we conclude that they can consistently be responsible for altering the decay rates of the two elements mentioned in the article?

BTW: I found this interesting tidbit below on how many of these invisible little critters are passing through us every second.

"Neutrinos are generated by nuclear reactions, such as those that occur in the sun or in nuclear reactors. Most come from the sun: More than 50 trillion solar neutrinos pass through the human body every second, but they are extremely difficult to detect because they have no charge and a mass so tiny it has never been measured."
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/neutrino.html

[editor-surveyor]

Unknowns far out-weigh the knowns in particle land.

[gorush]

Here is an interesting photo of Albert and some of his friends...

[JRandomFreeper]

Having raised teenagers.... clocks can move at different speeds depending on time, distance, gravity, and heat. Heat seems to be a large factor. I do know that.

As for the quantum delay rates, I can only gather data.

Next grandbaby due in 2 weeks....

/johnny

[BlueDragon]

As I've heard that some physicists have [in brief] described it;

We are in the Sun.

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, that’s some roll call. :’)

[ETL]

"The Earth is actually about 3 million miles closer to the Sun during northern hemisphere *winter*."

While true, many would insist it should be the other way around. And it has been the other way around, a long time ago. Which is part of the reason that continents in the Northern Hemisphere were covered with ice.

If you are referring to the last ice age which ended about 12,000 years ago, the tilt of the Earth's axis was nowhere near reversed as you seem to be suggesting. In other words, the northern hemisphere was still angled away from the Sun at basically the same angle it is now during its winter. However, the Earth itself may have been further away from the Sun during that period, since the shape of Earth's ellipse changes periodically (gets slightly longer and narrower in a predictable cycle of roughly 100,000 years).

[Kevmo]

No biggie. You might just be wondering why some of the usuals aren’t showing up. I tried a title search yesterday and had the same thing happen, even though I was looking at the exact word in the title.