We provide the results from a spectral analysis of nuclear decay data displaying annually varying periodic fluctuations. The analyzed data were obtained from three distinct data sets: 32 Si and 36 Cl decays reported by an experiment performed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), 56 Mn decay reported by the Children's Nutrition Research Center (CNRC), but also performed at BNL, and 226 Ra decay reported by an experiment performed at the Physikalisch-Technische-Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany. All three data sets exhibit the same primary frequency mode consisting of an annual period. Additional spectral comparisons of the data to local ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, Earth-Sun distance, and their reciprocals were performed. No common phases were found between the factors investigated and those exhibited by the nuclear decay data. This suggests that either a combination of factors was responsible, or that, if it was a single factor, its effects on the decay rate experiments are not a direct synchronous modulation. We conclude that the annual periodicity in these data sets is a real effect, but that further study involving additional carefully controlled experiments will be needed to establish its origin.

We report a reanalysis of data on the measured decay rate ratio 22 Na/ 44 Ti which were originally published by Norman et al., and interpreted as supporting the conventional hypothesis that nuclear decay rates are constant and not affected by outside influences. We find upon a more detailed analysis of both the amplitude and the phase of the Norman data that they actually favor the presence of an annual variation in 22 Na/ 44 Ti, albeit weakly. Moreover, this conclusion holds for a broad range of parameters describing the amplitude and phase of an annual sinusoidal variation in these data. The results from this and related analyses underscore the growing importance of phase considerations in understanding the possible influence of the Sun on nuclear decays. Our conclusions with respect to the phase of the Norman data are consistent with independent analyses of solar neutrino data obtained at Super-Kamiokande-I and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO).

No abstract