Lensing effect on the relative orientation between the Cosmic Microwave Background ellipticities and the distant galaxies

The low redshift structures of the Universe act as lenses in a similar way on the Cosmic Microwave Background light and on the distant galaxies (say at redshift about unity). As a consequence, the CMB temperature distortions are expected to be statistically correlated with the galaxy shear, exhibiting a non-uniform distribution of the relative angle between the CMB and the galactic ellipticities. Investigating this effect we find that its amplitude is as high as a 10% excess of alignement between CMB and the galactic ellipticities relative to the uniform distribution. The relatively high signal-to-noise ratio we found should makes possible a detection with the planned CMB data sets, provided that a galaxy survey follow up can be done on a sufficiently large area. It would provide a complementary bias-independent constraint on the cosmological parameters.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; uses emulateapj.sty; submitted to Ap

Testing claims of the GW170817 binary neutron star inspiral affecting β-decay rates

On August 17, 2017, the first gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star inspiral(GW170817) was detected by Advanced LIGO and Advanced VIRGO. Here we presentradioactiveβ-decay rates of three independent sources44Ti,60Co and137Cs, monitoredduring the same period by a precision experiment designed to investigate the decay oflong-lived radioactive sources. We do not find any significant correlations between decayrates in a 5 h time interval following the GW170817 observation. This contradicts aprevious claim published in this journal of an observed 2.5σPearson Correlation betweenfluctuations in the number of observed decays from twoβ-decaying isotopes (32Si and36Cl) in the same time interval. By correcting for the choice of an arbitrary time interval,we find no evidence of a correlation above 1.5σconfidence. In addition, we argue thatsuch analyses on correlations in arbitrary time intervals should always correct for theso-called Look-Elsewhere effect by quoting the global significance

No correlation between Solar flares and the decay rate of several β-decaying isotopes

We report on finding no correlation between the two strongest observed Solar flares in September 2017 and the decay rates of 60 Co, 44 Ti and 137 Cs sources, which are continuously measured by two independent NaI(Tl) detector setups. We test for variations in the number of observed counts with respect to the number of expected counts over multiple periods with timescales varying from 1 to 109 h around the Solar flare. No excess or deficit exceeds the 2 σ global significance. We set a conservative lower limit on the decay rate deviation over an 84 h period around the two correlated Solar flares in September 2017 to 0.062% with 2 σ confidence. A fractional change of ∼0.1% in the decay rate of 54 Mn over a period of 84 h was claimed with 7 σ significance during multiple Solar flares in December 2006. We exclude such an effect at 4.7 σ significance

Testing claims of the GW170817 binary neutron star inspiral affecting β-decay rates

On August 17, 2017, the first gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star inspiral (GW170817) was detected by Advanced LIGO and Advanced VIRGO. Here we present radioactive β-decay rates of three independent sources 44Ti, 60Co and 137Cs, monitored during the same period by a precision experiment designed to investigate the decay of long-lived radioactive sources. We do not find any significant correlations between decay rates in a 5 h time interval following the GW170817 observation. This contradicts a previous claim published in this journal of an observed 2.5σ Pearson Correlation between fluctuations in the number of observed decays from two β-decaying isotopes (32Si and 36Cl) in the same time interval. By correcting for the choice of an arbitrary time interval, we find no evidence of a correlation above 1.5σ confidence. In addition, we argue that such analyses on correlations in arbitrary time intervals should always correct for the so-called Look-Elsewhere effect by quoting the global significance