Comment on the paper "Search for oscillation of the electron-capture decay probability of $^{142}$Pm" at arXiv:0807.0649v1

TL;DR

This paper argues that the non-observation of oscillations in electron-capture decay rates of $^{142}$Pm may be due to the decay process involving three-body final states, challenging previous assumptions of two-body decay models.

Contribution

It highlights that electron-capture decays in solid-state environments involve three-body final states, which could explain why no oscillations were observed in prior experiments.

Findings

Decay involves three objects: neutrino, recoiling atom, and phonons.

This three-body nature may prevent periodic decay rate modulations.

Challenges the assumption of two-body decay in oscillation searches.

Abstract

It is argued that orbital electron-capture decays of neutral $^{142}$Pm atoms implanted into the lattice of a solid (LBNL experiment) do not fulfil the constraints of true two-body beta decays, since momentum as well as energy of the final state are distributed among three objects, namely the electron neutrino, the recoiling daughter atom and the lattice phonons. To our understanding, this could be a reason for the non-observation of a periodic time modulation in the number of electron-capture decays of implanted neutral $^{142}$Pm atoms.