Posted on by maxfomitchev

55Fe

55Fe is a relatively short-lived isotope that undergoes an inverse beta decays (K-capture) with the half life of 2.737 years.

When searching for natural radioactive decay acceleration it is preferable to work with short-lived isotopes like 55Fe because they are relatively unstable. Intuitively it seems that it would be easier to disrupt an unstable isotope than a stable one. In this regard 55Fe is a perfect candidate.

Creating High Positive Potential

From my hypothesis of the universal ether it follows that I should be able to speed up nuclear time creating high positive charge density. A positively charged van der Graaf generator would be ideal because it can create static potentials up to 1.6 MV. But until my negatively-charged van der Graaf is rebuilt, high positive voltage DC power supply such as Spellman SL120P is the next best choice – Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Experimental setup comprising a Spellman SL120P +120 kV DC power supply.

The Spellman DC power supply can achieve and sustain the potential of +120 kV. To expose the 55Fe sample to the high potential I have attached a sample holder – Fig. 2 – to the tip of the high voltage cable such that the sample makes an electrical contact with the cable.

Fig. 2. 55Fe source (left) and sample holder (right).

Unfortunately, I was not able to make a perfect contact and there has been a great deal of hissing due to corona discharge at the tip of the cable, which apparently eroded the sample somewhat. Ideally an electrical contact must be made in such way that there is no corona or leakage currents.

X-Ray Spectroscopy

To measure the activity of the 55Fe source I have used a Ketek X-ray spectrometer and the PulseCounter software – Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Ketek X-ray spectrometer.

I have connected the spectrometer to PicoScope 4262 16-bit oscilloscope to provide the interface for the PulseCounter.

The sample holder (Fig. 2) is actually a protective dust cap that came with the Ketek spectrometer. The cap made a very nice sample holder because of its snug fit, which enables precise positioning every time the cap is removed and reset. This precise positioning is the key requirement when measuring minute changes in activity. In fact the small variations of the sample position is the main source of systematic errors. To evaluate the effect of the imperfect positioning I have taken three baseline readings from my 55Fe source, which I’ve inserted into the cap. The results are given in on Fig. 4 (blue_.

Fig. 4. Unexposed 55Fe actihevity (blue) compared to the exposed sample activity (red).

The baseline counts were 4,513, 4,524, and 4,519 CPS. I’d say pretty good repeatability for such a simple sample holder.

To expose the sample to high positive potential I have taped the sample with the sample holder to the tip of the high voltage cable of my Spellman SL120P power supply and turned on the power for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

When I turned off the power I replaced the sample holder on the tip of the spectrometer and conducted 5 measurements. For each measurement I have been removing and reinserting the holder to check for the effects of the imperfect positioning. The results are summarized on Fig. 4 (red).

Results

The exposed sample counts were significantly lower: the difference was about 200 CPS, whereas the variance due to imperfect position was about 20 CPS (i.e. the systematic error due to the imperfect positioning was only 10% of the observed count decrease). Therefore the count reduction appears genuine, which when taken at face value supports the activity reduction hypothesis due to nuclear time acceleration.

However, there is a second source of systematic errors – sample ablation. As you can see from Fig. 2, the 55Fe source took a big hit from the corona discharge. Therefore unknown quantity of the sample could have been lost to ablation.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the rather significant ablation is the most likely result of the count decrease. This is a systematic that I need to control in my next experiment. To control the ablation I must make a new sample holder that 1) will make good electrical contract with the high voltage cable and with the sample; and 2) will not produce corona around the sample.

Only a significant reduction in counts (in excess of the variance due to the imperfect positioning) without ablation will lend support to the nuclear time acceleration hypothesis. Although I will have to look for other sources of systematic errors that could have influenced the counts.