SEARCH FOR NON-POISSONIAN BEHAVIOR IN NUCLEAR BETA-DECAY

We performed two independent counting experiments on a beta-emitting s ource of Sm-151(62) by measuring the gamma photon emitted in a fractio n of the decays. For counting times ranging from 10(-3) to 5.12 x 10(4 ) s, our measurements show no evidence of deviations from Poissonian b ehavior and, in particular, no sign of 1/f noise. These measurements p ut strong limits on non-Poissonian components of the fluctuations for the subset of decays accompanied by gamma, and corresponding limits fo r the total number of beta decays. In particular, the magnitude of a h ypothetical flicker floor is strongly bounded also for the beta decay. This result further constrains theories predicting anomalous fluctuat ions in nuclear decays.