From Stanford University News a really wild must read science discovery.
h/t to Leif Svalgaard and WUWT reader “carbon-based-life-form”.
The strange case of solar flares and radioactive elements
When researchers found an unusual linkage between solar flares and the inner life of radioactive elements on Earth, it touched off a scientific detective investigation that could end up protecting the lives of space-walking astronauts and maybe rewriting some of the assumptions of physics.
BY DAN STOBER
It’s a mystery that presented itself unexpectedly: The radioactive decay of some elements sitting quietly in laboratories on Earth seemed to be influenced by activities inside the sun, 93 million miles away.
Is this possible?
Researchers from Stanford and Purdue University believe it is. But their explanation of how it happens opens the door to yet another mystery.
There is even an outside chance that this unexpected effect is brought about by a previously unknown particle emitted by the sun. “That would be truly remarkable,” said Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun.
The story begins, in a sense, in classrooms around the world, where students are taught that the rate of decay of a specific radioactive material is a constant. This concept is relied upon, for example, when anthropologists use carbon-14 to date ancient artifacts and
when doctors determine the proper dose of radioactivity to treat a cancer patient.
Random numbers
But that assumption was challenged in an unexpected way by a group of researchers from Purdue University who at the time were more interested in random numbers than nuclear decay. (Scientists use long strings of random numbers for a variety of calculations, but they are difficult to produce, since the process used to produce the numbers has an influence on the outcome.)
Ephraim Fischbach, a physics professor at Purdue, was looking into the rate of radioactive decay of several isotopes as a possible source of random numbers generated without any human input. (A lump of radioactive cesium-137, for example, may decay at a steady rate overall, but individual atoms within the lump will decay in an unpredictable, random pattern. Thus the timing of the random ticks of a Geiger counter placed near the cesium might be used to generate random numbers.)
As the researchers pored through published data on specific isotopes, they found disagreement in the measured decay rates – odd for supposed physical constants.
Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.
Was this fluctuation real, or was it merely a glitch in the equipment used to measure the decay, induced by the change of seasons, with the accompanying changes in temperature and humidity?
“Everyone thought it must be due to experimental mistakes, because we’re all brought up to believe that decay rates are constant,” Sturrock said.
The sun speaks
On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare.
If this apparent relationship between flares and decay rates proves true, it could lead to a method of predicting solar flares prior to their occurrence, which could help prevent damage to satellites and electric grids, as well as save the lives of astronauts in space.
The decay-rate aberrations that Jenkins noticed occurred during the middle of the night in Indiana – meaning that something produced by the sun had traveled all the way through the Earth to reach Jenkins’ detectors. What could the flare send forth that could have such an effect?
Jenkins and Fischbach guessed that the culprits in this bit of decay-rate mischief were probably solar neutrinos, the almost weightless particles famous for flying at almost the speed of light through the physical world – humans, rocks, oceans or planets – with virtually no interaction with anything.
Then, in a series of papers published in Astroparticle Physics, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research and Space Science Reviews, Jenkins, Fischbach and their colleagues showed that the observed variations in decay rates were highly unlikely to have come from environmental influences on the detection systems.
Reason for suspicion
Their findings strengthened the argument that the strange swings in decay rates were caused by neutrinos from the sun. The swings seemed to be in synch with the Earth’s elliptical orbit, with the decay rates oscillating as the Earth came closer to the sun (where it would be exposed to more neutrinos) and then moving away.
So there was good reason to suspect the sun, but could it be proved?
Enter Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun. While on a visit to the National Solar Observatory in Arizona, Sturrock was handed copies of the scientific journal articles written by the Purdue researchers.
Sturrock knew from long experience that the intensity of the barrage of neutrinos the sun continuously sends racing toward Earth varies on a regular basis as the sun itself revolves and shows a different face, like a slower version of the revolving light on a police car. His advice to Purdue: Look for evidence that the changes in radioactive decay on Earth vary with the rotation of the sun. “That’s what I suggested. And that’s what we have done.”
A surprise
Going back to take another look at the decay data from the Brookhaven lab, the researchers found a recurring pattern of 33 days. It was a bit of a surprise, given that most solar observations show a pattern of about 28 days – the rotation rate of the surface of the sun.
The explanation? The core of the sun – where nuclear reactions produce neutrinos – apparently spins more slowly than the surface we see. “It may seem counter-intuitive, but it looks as if the core rotates more slowly than the rest of the sun,” Sturrock said.
All of the evidence points toward a conclusion that the sun is “communicating” with radioactive isotopes on Earth, said Fischbach.
But there’s one rather large question left unanswered. No one knows how neutrinos could interact with radioactive materials to change their rate of decay.
“It doesn’t make sense according to conventional ideas,” Fischbach said. Jenkins whimsically added, “What we’re suggesting is that something that doesn’t really interact with anything is changing something that can’t be changed.”
“It’s an effect that no one yet understands,” agreed Sturrock. “Theorists are starting to say, ‘What’s going on?’ But that’s what the evidence points to. It’s a challenge for the physicists and a challenge for the solar people too.”
If the mystery particle is not a neutrino, “It would have to be something we don’t know about, an unknown particle that is also emitted by the sun and has this effect, and that would be even more remarkable,” Sturrock said.
Chantal Jolagh, a science-writing intern at the Stanford News Service, contributed to this story.
Dr. Lurtz says:
August 24, 2010 at 9:11 am
Why would a 33 day core rotation affect neutrino production? Is there a bump in the core that sends more neutrinos?
How about a 33 day throb or pulse (expanding and contracting) like heart beat?
—————-
Dr. Lurtz ,
Yes, why fix on a rotation of the sun at 33 day period, at which it isn’t yet known to rotate?
Alternately, since no 33 day rotation is observed yet, why not equally speculate about a pulse dominated by feedbacks. Or why not some harmonic vibration at a 33 day frequency?
See below my earlier comment:
John Whitman says:
August 24, 2010 at 12:36 am
Thoughts:
. . . . [edit] . . . 2) The observed variation in decay rates is on a ~33 day recurring pattern. Rotation of sun was suggested as the possible cause, however, the sun is not currently known to have that period of rotation. Perhaps more knowledge of sun could show parts of sun rotate at ~33 days. However, rotation is not the only process in nature that can cause recurring patterns. Recurring patterns can also be caused by pulsing due to feedbacks. Also, modes of vibration/pressure fluctuations can take on harmonic aspects. Locking into sun rotation is early days, perhaps. . . .[edit] . . .
John
“Philip T. Downman says:
August 24, 2010 at 8:07 am
Hmm..density maybe, but the mass doesn’t increase, does it? On the contrary in fact. (Remember m=E/c².) To preserve momentum – wouldn’t it have to rotate even faster if it gets denser?”
I see where you’re coming from but with fusion you get extra heat so the denser core gets move out and slows whereas the outer volume is not affected to the same affect so the core slows reletavily.
I’ve read with amusement as some people here invoke some sort of relativistic mechanism for this apparent discrepancy in radioactive decay. However, unless I was asleep in my “Modern Elementary Physics” class, relativity can’t be invoked unless the observer and the phenomena being observed are separated by a significant frame of reference. If both are stationary (or the change is constant) with respect to each other, the time shift will be constant, hence no variable change in decay rate.
Certainly, a solar flare won’t significantly change the space/time continuum of the earth relative to the sun.
One of the best posts so far!! So many questions raised, so few answers. So many ideas from the comments.
Particle entanglement, gravitons, time dilation, dark energy. Many potential issues. Some physicists postulate that the speed of light may itself may not be constant in higher energy situations (FTL theory) and particle entanglement is an observed phenomina of quantum physics. Time dilation has been observed to effect the decay of radioactive particles when accellerated to high percentages of the speed of light, from the frame of reference of an outside observer, of course. Gravity also has similar effect. Length distortion is also an issue at relativistic speeds and gravity. Lots to think about. Settled science, huh?
Dave Springer says:
August 24, 2010 at 9:08 am
“I think physicists are the most open minded of all. However they’re not immune to the political consequences of giving ammunition to the non-academic side of the so-called culture war so they tend to keep their non-mainstream thoughts out of the press and confine it to discussion with other physicists.”
It has very little to do with any “culture war”. The problem is that seriously trying to discuss such issues with non-physicists leads to endless frustration, because they do not understand the background and have no order of magnitude feel for the pertinent phenomena, and so are apt to go off into irrelevancies (eg, the reliability of carbon dating – upon which this thread’s reported effect would have no significant impact). And if the press picks it up, they are sure to get it wrong.
““Cosmological theories in which fundamental “constants” vary secularly with the age of the universe have been taken very seriously over the past century.”
Agreed, but they are viewed askance.”
Cranks who continue to adhere to them after they’ve been falsified are viewed askance. The same way AGW believers should now be viewed.
““In some cases, such as the fine structure constant (of considerable relevance to radioactive decay), these measurements are extraordinarily precise. Their constancy is very well-established.”
They are only established at this time in history in this corner of the universe. That’s the whole point.”
No, they are established over practically the whole visible universe over practically its entire history. That’s the whole point. The whole edifice hangs together. If there were any inconstancy in them, the very stars and galaxies could not exist as we observe them. Change any one of those “constants” and the knock-on effects change everything.
@ur momisugly John Whitman August 24, 2010 at 10:55 am
John –
A.) They seem to have jumped to a conclusion, yes.
B.) There may be some linkage with Jupiter
C.) From Stanford’s own
This last number implies some the polar region may be rotating at close to 33 days. (The article does not resolve it to any decimal place; perhaps it is 32.8 or something close.) This could be a clue suggesting that the effect is coming from the Sun’s pole(s).
If so, that could open up whole new vistas for looking at the Sun – what part do the poles play? All of our attention has gone into mid- and low-latitude phenomena, including sunspots.
Source of the previous Stanford data is: http://solar-center.stanford.edu/vitalstats.html
Feet2theFire says:
August 24, 2010 at 11:35 am
This last number implies some the polar region may be rotating at close to 33 days. (The article does not resolve it to any decimal place; perhaps it is 32.8 or something close.) This could be a clue suggesting that the effect is coming from the Sun’s pole(s).
Rather it would suggest an analogy to a rotating sphere: the speed at the equator is maximal, at the poles it is the speed of the axis , i.e. 0.
@ur momisugly a jones says August 23, 2010 at 10:22 pm:
Just thinkin’. . . . The effect is noticed with radioactive isotopes, and evidently quite a few of them. But there may be other isotopes not affected, and there may be non-radioactive ones that might be used to check the (assumed) Cesium-137 clocks against. (I personally don’t know what would be measured in non-radioactive ones…) Thus, it may be possible to calibrate the clock, rather than use a different one.
Many different directions this one can go, methinks. They just need to list all the possible specific directions and prioritize them, and then start working their way through them. So far it sounds like it is all what one scientist I knew referred to as “intuitive” hypothesizing – which he would use to narrow down possibilities, before attacking the most likely ones. On more mundane stumpers that process worked well.
George E. Smith says:
August 24, 2010 at 9:47 am
“I’m too rusty to have caught the Feynman thing Anna, but let’s suppose it was some other critter. I could imagine some intruder acting to stimulate a decay event; but they say that the decay rate slows; so it would have to be an inhibitting reaction.”
The decay rate is faster in winter than in summer. The Earth is nearer the Sun in winter than in summer (assuming they mean Northern hemisphere winter and summer). So the decay rate is greater when the neutrino (or other) fluxes are greater. The neutrinos (or whatever) are (apparently) stimulating the decay, which is just what they should do. Anna’s Feynmann diagram argument is merely one way (a good way) of seeing that the magnitude of the effect to be expected is very very small, and thus unable to explain so comparatively large an effect. I do think it would be sensible to carry out a simple experiment with a neutrino beam, though – just to make sure we’re not missing something major in the physics.
@Nasif Nahle says August 23, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Reading the paper as best I can, it does not in anyway refute any of the speculations Jenkins was making. It only addresses the issue of the DISTANCE from the Sun to the Earth:
The paper disproved something else altogether.
Great article. It’s nice to see there are still some questions to be answered in science. Oftentimes everyone gets stuck in the accetable theory of the day and uses their constants as if there were still not so much we dont know. We are just barely scratching the surface Earths influencers.. and to consider anything constant is IMHO foolish.
meemoe_uk
The Berkeley authors seem to be using some sort of non-standard manufactured version of a statistical test.
They form a null hypothesis that there is no correlation between the rates and time (the null is represented by a flat curve) and an alternative hypothesis that the rates change (according to what appears to be a scaled version of a sinusoidal curve).
What they do next is a puzzle. They calculate a “correlation” between the data and the “hypothesis” for each of the two hypotheses. E.g., in the first case, the correlation with the null is 0.9999 and with the alternative 0.3389 (with each correlation having an associated chi-square value). Their conclusion from this is that “the null hypothesis is strongly favored over the Jenkins [alternative] hypothesis.
What I don’t understand is where these correlations come from. I can see how one could calculate a correlation between a sequence of data values and the corresponding sinusoidal curve value at the same time point, but how on earth can you calculate a correlation with a flat zero slope line?
Where can you find a good statistician to explain this to me?
anna v says:
August 24, 2010 at 9:27 am
“Neutrinos cannot work in the scheme.”
Maybe the scheme is wrong. There was only one type of neutrino recently. Last time I checked there are now three flavors which result from mutations in the first? In 1969 they had no mass or charge, only a “spin”, now perhaps they have some mass? At least I have seen that postulated. My only issue is that the “schemes” equations that we work with seem to be put together so they do work, until they no longer work, then we are forced to come up with new ones that work for the new observations. Nothing wrong with that. Keep an open mind. Perhaps the “scheme” needs another look.
Personally, if the results are not artifacts, I’ll bet on quantum effects of some type. Particle entanglement, tunneling, discontinuity of space or perhaps fields theory which I never understood.. Your guess will be better than mine.
John Walker’s Hotbits webpage at http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ generates true random numbers from radioactive decay.
Fortunately, in light of this new development, his method does not require knowing the decay rate of the isotope he uses. Instead he just measures the relative length of time between two successive pairs of clicks, and scores it as a 0 or 1 depending on which is longer. And in order to compensate for a declining rate as the material decays (or now a variable rate as the earth circles the sun or the sun rotates!), he alternates the rule for assigning 0’s and 1’s. 8 bits make a random byte and so forth.
The process is slow, but his website will send you 2K bytes never used and never to be used by anyone else. These can be used to seed long-cycle numerical random number generators, to generate never-before-generated strings of pseudorandom numbers.
“Alexander Feht says:
This is the clue.
Radioactive decay is constant.
Time (for the observers) changes, depending on their distance to the massive source of gravity. Gravity is a curvature not only of the space but also of the time, remember?
P.P.S. The Hubble’s “red shift” is of the same origin, in my opinion… ”
You must be a BBT sceptic.
For the BBT sceptics try this;
http://davidcrawford.bigpondhosting.com/
http://davidcrawford.bigpondhosting.com/index_files/cc2.pdf
Maybe his theory can explain it.
cesium clocks around the planet do run at different rates relative to eachother, if you google it somewhere you can find a map that keeps track
and if the change of decay rate were due to a change in the actual passage of time, it would of course be undetectable because the clock would also change rate.
of course, maybe time itself doesn’t speed up or slowdown, it’s only the clocks that run faster or slower.
my own bet is that it an electromagnetic effect, some change in the sun causing a mass/charge change which increases/decreases the rate of decay. but then the clock should still change as well. hmmmph.
very intriguing post!
“”” peterhodges says:
August 24, 2010 at 1:10 pm “””
Peter, Radioactive decay is a NUCLEAR effect not an ATOMIC effect; so the likelihood of EM radiation getting to the Nucleus of the atom which is umpteen orders of magnitude smaller than the atom, is rather small. Not that it is zero since the nucleus can emit gamma rays; but we are talking energetic intruders if it were an EM effect.
There’s the other problem that if you try to explain it with some sort of nuclear reaction to an incoming particle; there’s the question of the reaction products; whcih surely would have been detected already if that were the mechanism.
Anna didn’t rule out a neutrino reaction; but implied that the probablility of such would be much lower than what the effect apparently is.
Well on the assumption that this “neutrino” (could be something else) generator is sat on the surface of the core, and is exhibiting this periodicity – then that implies the core is significantly opaque to neutrinos. If not, then we just have a generator moving in a very small circle a very long way away, which IMHO wouldn’t cause a significant change in particles received.
As for the core rotating more slowly than the extremities, don’t the planets do this anyway using the “wind” mechanism?
Finally, http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC7.htm – does this bulge just rotate on its own, or does it point at something?
son of mulder (and Philip T. Downman):
You assume that events on microcosmic scale (such as radioactive decay) necessarily happen within the same time frame as their macro-cosmic observation. This is, certainly, a point of view promulgated today in schools and colleges.
But how do you know?
P.S. Philip T. Downman, tell yourself, what explanation is right for you to bring up or not. Giving such imperative directions to others is rude, and has no place within an intelligent conversation (that is, if you hope to create an impression that you are an intelligent person).
“”” Paul Birch says:
August 24, 2010 at 11:59 am
George E. Smith says:
August 24, 2010 at 9:47 am
“I’m too rusty to have caught the Feynman thing Anna, but let’s suppose it was some other critter. I could imagine some intruder acting to stimulate a decay event; but they say that the decay rate slows; so it would have to be an inhibitting reaction.”
The decay rate is faster in winter than in summer. “””
Paul, I’ll buy that. The way I read the story, I got the feeling they were talking about a short transient slowdown rather than something more of a cyclic event. I guess I focussed on the sun rotations of 33 days, and had visions of some sort of beam effect; so I missed that the observed slowdown is in sync with the earth orbit.
Pretty weird though if a neutrino can go through the whole earth without hitting anything important; that it can cause a nuclear event is crazy; well at least often enough to be observable.
And then there’s the question; if it is a neutrino event which species of neutrino would it be. I’m not familiar enough with the details of the standard model to have a clear picture of what the weird neutrinos do; but if it is radioactive decay, then it would seem to be just an electron neutrino.
I’ll let you and Anna figure this one out; I’ll be in the bleachers cheering.
@ur momisugly Jim G says August 24, 2010 at 12:42 pm:
It appears that they tried to float an Earth-Sun-distance hypothesis, and it got shot down last year in a peer-reviewed paper. The article left out the Earth-Sun-distance, so it appears they have given up on that one. It seems like they are possibly floundering for explanations and the neutrino concept is the best one they could come up with. If so, they must really be stretched out, if they have to posit that something not known to interact with matter is the cause.
I agree with anna v on the neutrino angle.
On tough problems out there on the edge, I have come to think it is usually a matter of figuring out what questions to ask, eventually reducing it down to one last and really good question – one that is not on the horizon early on. Until that time, all that can be done is to be methodical with questions and experiments, to solidify what you can and falsify what you can, to narrow it down eventually. Like some others here, I don’t like that they are speculating in public – not very good science, if you ask me.
It is VERY COOL that there is this new phenomenon, but if they don’t know, they should be saying things like, “It is a perplexing problem that we are doing our best to solve; it has elements in it that seem contradictory, and all those need to be ironed out. Applying the scientific method will zero us in on the answer, in time. [In the meantime, WE NEED GRANT MONEY!]”
anna v says:
August 24, 2010 at 11:49 am
Feet2theFire says:
August 24, 2010 at 11:35 am
“Rather it would suggest an analogy to a rotating sphere: the speed at the equator is maximal, at the poles it is the speed of the axis , i.e. 0.”
I think you are talking radial velocity in your “speed”. How do you measure the radial velocity of an infintesimally small immaginery point without even a delta M radius? I would think it would be undefined and is of little consequence until you are at least that delta M distance from the axis at which point it has some radial velocity, delta V, and can have some consequences relative to the issue.
“”” Paul Birch says:
August 24, 2010 at 11:34 am
Dave Springer says:
August 24, 2010 at 9:08 am
“I think physicists are the most open minded of all. However they’re not immune to the political consequences of giving ammunition to the non-academic side of the so-called culture war so they tend to keep their non-mainstream thoughts out of the press and confine it to discussion with other physicists.”
It has very little to do with any “culture war”. The problem is that seriously trying to discuss such issues with non-physicists leads to endless frustration, because they do not understand the background and have no order of magnitude feel for the pertinent phenomena, and so are apt to go off into irrelevancies (eg, the reliability of carbon dating – upon which this thread’s reported effect would have no significant impact). And if the press picks it up, they are sure to get it wrong. “””
I couldn’t agree more. The errors in RC dating that arise from the non-constant rate of 14C production in the atmosphere from Nitrogen would simply swamp any effect this new phenomenon might have on dating. And studies like the Bristle Cone pine dating have done a lot to linearize the 14C time scale but have hardly eliminated it.
Feet2theFire says:
August 24, 2010 at 10:51 am
Stober is referring to the C14 decay rate, the number of years for half of a big bunch of C14 atoms to decay.
You’re talking about the C14 generation rate which is more variable than people first assumed.
Together they determine the amount of C14 vs C12 (or C13) in various plant and other matter, and that’s what people use in radiocarbon dating.