Possible Evidence of Time Variation of Weak Interaction Constant from Double Beta Decay Experiments

Abstract

A comparison is made of the probability of the process of two neutrino double beta decay for ${}^{82}$Se in direct (counter) and geochemical experiments. It is shown that the probability is systematically lower in geochemical experiments, which characterize the probability of $\beta \beta (2\nu )$ decay a few billions years ago. The experimental data for ${}^{130}$Te are also analyzed. It is shown that geochemical measurements on young minerals give lower values of $T_{1/2}$ (${}^{130}$Te) and $T_{1/2}$ (${}^{82}$Se) as compared to measurements on old minerals. It is proposed that this could be due to a change in the weak interaction constant with time. Possibilities of new, precise measurements be performed with the aid of counters and geochemical experiments are discussed.

6 pages, talk given at the workshop on varing fundamental constants, JENAM 2002, Porto, Portugal, September 2-7, 2002

References in corpus (1)

• Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant

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