 Possible explanation for seasonal radiation anomaly
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Conundrum
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Sun Jul 17 2016, 11:58AM
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Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062
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I may have come up with a working hypothesis for the seasonal "radioactive decay" anomaly that explains the later null result.
It occurs to me that the tubes used in the original study had a diamagnetic component (Bi) and also some tubes use a graphite shield which is also diamagnetic. If the culprit is indeed solar axions then it follows that a weak radioactive source could be adding noise to the system and allowing the effect to rise above the detection threshold similar to how some radio receivers use this approach to detect weak signals. If so then a shielded tube with a very long lived isotope such as 40K should generate a clear seasonal effect and a tube with a large diamagnetic component even more so.
In the case of bismuth its electrons are in an unusual configuration that could allow the relatively weak interaction of solar axions to be detected as it affects the ionization energy from an existing particle (eg a gamma ray) interacting with them.
Also see  (found while searching just now)
Also noticed that as certain gamma sensors also use PG (aka pyrolytic graphite) as a shield they might exhibit the same effect. In contact with First Sensor at the moment as this could be worth testing.
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