On the time modulation of the K-shell electron capture decay rates of H-like heavy ions at GSI experiments

TL;DR

This paper explains the observed time modulation in K-shell electron capture decay rates of H-like heavy ions at GSI as resulting from interference between two neutrino mass eigenstates, influenced by energy uncertainties in detection.

Contribution

It provides a novel explanation for the GSI decay rate modulations based on neutrino interference effects, linking experimental observations to neutrino physics.

Findings

Decay rates show time modulation with periods proportional to the nucleus mass number.

Interference of neutrino mass eigenstates accounts for the observed modulation.

Energy and momentum uncertainties in detection enable neutrino interference effects.

Abstract

According to experimental data at GSI, the rates of the number of daughter ions, produced by the nuclear K-shell electron capture (EC) decays of the H-like heavy ions with one electron in the K-shell, such as 142Pr58+, 142Pm60+ and 122I52+, are modulated in time with periods T_(EC)of the order of a few seconds, obeying an A-scaling T_(EC)= A/20 s, where A is the mass number of the mother nuclei, and with amplitudes a^(EC)_d ~ 0.21. We show that these data can be explained in terms of the interference of two massive neutrino mass-eigenstates. The appearance of the interference term is due to overlap of massive neutrino mass-eigenstate energies and of the wave functions of the daughter ions in two-body decay channels, caused by the energy and momentum uncertainties introduced by time differential detection of the daughter ions in GSI experiments.