Document Type
Article
Department
Physics
Publication Date
8-2009
Abstract
Claims for a “cosmogenic” force that correlates otherwise independent stochastic processes have been made for at least 10 years, based on visual inspection of histograms whose shapes were interpreted as suggestive of recurrent patterns. Building on our earlier work to test nuclear alpha, beta, and electron-capture decay processes for non-randomness, we searched for correlations in the time series of e+e- annihilations deriving from the decay of 22Na. Coincident gamma photons were counted within narrow time and energy windows over a period of 167 hours leading to a time series of more than 1 million events. Statistical tests for correlated fluctuations in the time series and its histograms were in all cases consistent with statistical control, giving no evidence of a “cosmogenic” force.
Comments
Originally published under Open Access terms in Europhysics Letters 87, no. 3 (2009): 1-6. http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075/87/3/32001