Anomalous effects of radioactive decay rates and capacitance values measured inside a modified Faraday cage: Correlations with space weather

¹ Research Office for Complex Physical and Biological Systems - 8038 Zurich, Switzerland
² Institute for Industrial, Radiophysical and Environmental Safety, Universitat Politècnica de València Camino de Vera, s/n, València, Spain
³ Traffic Control Systems Group, ITACA Institute, Universitat Politècnica de València Camino de Vera, s/n, València, Spain
⁴ Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS, École Polytechnique - F-91128 Palaiseau, France
⁵ Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Russian Academy of Science - Moscow Region, Pushchino 142290, Russia
⁶ Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Department, Universitat Politécnica de València Camino de Vera, s/n, València, Spain

Received: 14 November 2016
Accepted: 3 May 2017

Abstract

Recently we reported (Milián-Sánchez V. et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods A, 828 (2016) 210) our experimental results involving ²²⁶Ra decay rate and capacitance measurements inside a modified Faraday cage. Our measurements exhibited anomalous effects of unknown origin. In this letter we report new results regarding our investigation into the origins of the observed effects. We report preliminary findings of a correlation analysis between the radioactive decay rates and capacitance time series and space weather related variables (geomagnetic field disturbances and cosmic-ray neutron counts). A significant correlation was observed for specific data sets. The results are presented and possible implications for future work discussed.