Results of experimental investigations of cobalt beta decay rate variation

TL;DR

This study investigates potential variations in cobalt beta decay rates over a two-year period, using scintillation spectrometry and statistical analysis, and finds statistically significant deviations during specific periods.

Contribution

It presents long-term experimental data on cobalt beta decay rate variations and analyzes environmental influences, employing the Kolmogorov-Smirnov method for data analysis.

Findings

Detected deviations in decay rate during specific periods

Temperature influence on decay rate analyzed

Statistically significant variations observed

Abstract

Results of long-term investigations of variation of cobalt beta decay rate from 28.12.2010 till 08.02.2012 are presented. The scintillation spectrometer with two LaBr3 detectors is used to register of gamma-quanta with energy 1.173 and 1.332 MeV accompanying cobalt beta decay. Counting rate of each detector and their gamma-quanta coincidence are collected in successive time intervals 10 s. The statistical Kolmogorov-Smirnov method for data analysis is used. Temperature influence on experimental results is also analyzed. Deviations of beta decay counting rate from constant distribution during the days were detected in those decades: from 11.03 to 21.03 with significance level a = 0.1; from 22.04 to 02.05 with a=0.0125; from 24.06 to 04.07 with a=0.05; from 04.08 to 14.08 with a=0.05.