Is the Shroud of Turin in Relation to the Old Jerusalem Historical Earthquake?

Phillips and Hedges suggested, in the scientific magazine Nature (1989), that neutron radiation could be liable of a wrong radiocarbon dating, while proton radiation could be responsible of the Shroud body image formation. On the other hand, no plausible physical reason has been proposed so far to explain the radiation source origin, and its effects on the linen fibres. However, some recent studies, carried out by the first author and his Team at the Laboratory of Fracture Mechanics of the Politecnico di Torino, found that it is possible to generate neutron emissions from very brittle rock specimens in compression through piezonuclear fission reactions. Analogously, neutron flux increments, in correspondence to seismic activity, should be a result of the same reactions. A group of Russian scientists measured a neutron flux exceeding the background level by three orders of magnitude in correspondence to rather appreciable earthquakes (4th degree in Richter Scale). The authors consider the possibility that neutron emissions by earthquakes could have induced the image formation on Shroud linen fibres, trough thermal neutron capture by Nitrogen nuclei, and provided a wrong radiocarbon dating due to an increment in C(14,6)content. Let us consider that, although the calculated integral flux of 10^13 neutrons per square centimetre is 10 times greater than the cancer therapy dose, nevertheless it is100 times smaller than the lethal dose.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Absorption of 2.22 MeV solar flare gamma-rays and determining of the solar plasma density altitude profile

Abstract We supplement our previous model calculations of the 2.223 MeV solar flare gamma-rays time profiles by means of the consideration non-central flare and the calculations of the 2.223 MeV gamma-line τ-constant time profiles. Then we apply the proposed in our previous works method of the solar plasma density altitude profile definition, using the 2.223 MeV time profile, to the gamma-ray experimental data for the March 22, 1991, 22:42:51 UT solar flare. It is shown that, on the assumptions used, the most probable models of the altitude profile of the solar plasma during flare periods are the models with higher photospheric concentrations compared with the quiet Sun model

Distribution of neutrons near the Earth?s surface

International audienceThe distribution of the count rate of neutrons (per second) near the Earth?s surface for two directions: towards the Earth and away from it, is studied using the experimental data, obtained in Moscow during 1996. The analysis shows that the mathematical approximation of the neutron count rate distribution can be described by a sum of two functions: a Poison distribution and a log-normal distribution. This is in agreement with the two known sources of the total neutron flux near the Earth?s surface: generation of neutrons in nuclear interactions of high-energy cosmic ray particles with the Earth?s atmosphere and neutron production in the Earth?s crust. The log-normal distribution describes the contribution of the Earth?s crust to the total neutron flux near the Earth. Therefore, these dynamic processes in the Earth?s crust change the parameters of the log-normal distribution

Neutron flux variations near the Earth’s crust. A possible tectonic activity detection

The present work contains some results of observations of neutron flux variations near the Earth’s surface. The Earth’s crust is determined to be a significant source of thermal and slow neutrons, originated from the interaction between the nuclei of the elements of the Earth’s crust and the atmosphere and α-particles, produced by decay of radioactive gases (Radon, Thoron and Actinon). In turn, variations of radioactive gases exhalation is connected with geodynamical processes in the Earth’s crust, including tectonic activity. This determined relation between the processes in the Earth’s crust and neutrons’ flux allow to use variations of thermal and slow neutrons’ flux in order to observe increasing tectonic activity and to develop methods for short-term prediction of natural hazards