Pith. sign in

REVIEW 1 cited by

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2211.10319 v4 pith:FMQZ5TQ6 submitted 2022-11-18 nucl-ex hep-ex

Rare ⁴⁰K decay with implications for fundamental physics and geochronology

classification nucl-ex hep-ex
keywords textdecaystackrelrareratiostatagesanalysis
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

Potassium-40 is a widespread, naturally occurring isotope whose radioactivity impacts subatomic rare-event searches, nuclear structure theory, and estimated geological ages. A predicted electron-capture decay directly to the ground state of argon-40 has never been observed. The KDK (potassium decay) collaboration reports strong evidence of this rare decay mode. A blinded analysis reveals a non-zero ratio of intensities of ground-state electron-captures ($I_{\text{EC}^0}$) over excited-state ones ($I_\text{EC*}$) of $ I_{\text{EC}^0} / I_\text{EC*} = 0.0095 \stackrel{\text{stat}}{\pm} 0.0022 \stackrel{\text{sys}}{\pm} 0.0010 $ (68% C.L.), with the null hypothesis rejected at 4$\sigma$. In terms of branching ratio, this signal yields $I_{\text{EC}^0} = 0.098\% \stackrel{\text{stat}}{\pm} 0.023\% \stackrel{\text{sys}}{\pm} 0.010\% $, roughly half of the commonly used prediction, with consequences for various fields [L. Hariasz et al., companion paper, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.108.014327].

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 1 Pith paper

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Weak nuclear decays deep-underground as a probe of axion dark matter

    hep-ph 2024-12 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    A framework is developed to predict axion-induced time modulations in weak nuclear decays, used to derive constraints on the axion decay constant from reanalyzed Gran Sasso data on 40K and 137Cs and to propose future ...