Can the "Darmstadt oscillations" be treated as two closely spaced mass-eigenstates of the H-like mother ions ?

TL;DR

The paper investigates whether the Darmstadt oscillations can be explained by two closely spaced mass-eigenstates causing quantum beats, but finds this explanation inconsistent with experimental beta decay data.

Contribution

It critically examines the hypothesis that quantum beats from two mass-eigenstates cause the oscillations, showing this leads to predictions incompatible with observed decay rates.

Findings

Quantum beat hypothesis predicts modulated beta decay rates.

Predicted modulation contradicts experimental data.

The proposed explanation is unlikely to be correct.

Abstract

We discuss the proposal that the "Darmstadt oscillations" of the orbital K-shell electron capture decay (EC) rate of the H-like heavy ions are caused by quantum beats of two coherently excited, closely spaced mass-eigenstates of decaying H-like heavy ions. We show that such a mechanism to explain the time modulation of the EC-decay rates of the H-like heavy ions leads to the time modulation of the beta^+ decay rate of these ions with the same period. Such a time-dependence of the beta^+ decay rate of the H-like heavy ions contradicts the experimental data of GSI.