Anomalies in weak decays of H-like ions

TL;DR

This paper examines the GSI anomaly in H-like ion decays, demonstrating it cannot be due to neutrino oscillations and exploring how spectral deviations might cause decay law anomalies.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis ruling out neutrino oscillations as the cause of the GSI anomaly and links decay law oscillations to spectral function deviations.

Findings

Oscillations in decay laws are not caused by neutrino oscillations.

Spectral function deviations can induce decay law anomalies.

The GSI anomaly is unrelated to neutrino oscillation effects.

Abstract

We investigate the emergence of oscillations in the decay law of unstable systems. We discuss in particular the case of the so-called GSI anomaly seen in the electron capture decays of H-like ions and prove that such oscillations cannot be explained by neutrino oscillations. We then discuss how such anomalies could be intimately related to the decay law of unstable systems in the case in which their spectral function deviates from a Breit-Wigner shape.