tritium beta decay anomalies

["Karam, Andrew" <Andrew_Karam@URMC.Rochester.edu>]

I was looking through the xxx.lanl astrophysics e-prints and noticed the
following abstract.  The full paper (4 pages, pdf format) says that the
tritium beta spectrum shows anomalies in that there are more high-energy
betas emitted than expected.  This is the first I've heard of this
phenomenon and I was wondering if anyone else knows anything about this.
Given tritium's low energy, this is no doubt of little practical importance,
but it just looks interesting.

Testing Lorentz invariance violations in the tritium beta-decay anomaly

Abstract:  We consider a Lorentz non-invariant dispersion relation for the
neutrino, which would produce unexpected effects
     with neutrinos of few eV, exactly where the tritium beta-decay anomaly
is found. We use this anomaly to put
     bounds on the violation of Lorentz invariance. We discuss other
consequences of this non-invariant dispersion
     relation in neutrino experiments and high-energy cosmic-ray physics. 

This paper can be found on the XXX.LANL.GOV server at the following URL:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-ph/0007057

Andy

Andrew Karam, CHP              (716) 275-1473 (voice)
Radiation Safety Officer          (716) 275-3781 (office)
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