Search for non-Poissonian behavior in nuclear Β decay

Abstract

We performed two independent counting experiments on a \ensuremath{\mathrm{B}}-emitting source of $_{62}^{151}\mathrm{Sm}$ by measuring the \ensuremath{\gamma} photon emitted in a fraction of the decays. For counting times ranging from ${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}3}$ to 5.12\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{4}$ s, our measurements show no evidence of deviations from Poissonian behavior and, in particular, no sign of 1/f noise. These measurements put strong limits on non-Poissonian components of the fluctuations for the subset of decays accompanied by \ensuremath{\gamma}, and corresponding limits for the total number of \ensuremath{\mathrm{B}} decays. In particular, the magnitude of a hypothetical flicker floor is strongly bounded also for the \ensuremath{\mathrm{B}} decay. This result further constrains theories predicting anomalous fluctuations in nuclear decays.