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STRUCTURE OF DISTRIBUTION OF AMPLITUDE
OF PHOTOMULTIPLIER DARK CURRENT FLUCTUATIONS AS CORRELATED BY THE EARTH ROTATION.
M.V.Fedorov*, L.V.Belousov**, V.L.Voeikov**,
T.A.Zenchenko*, K.I.Zenchenko*, E.V.Pozharski*, A.A.Konradov#,
S.E.Shnoll*
* - Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of RAS,
Puschino, Russia, 142290
# - Institute of Biochemical Physics of RAS
- Physical faculty of the Moscow State
University
** - Biological faculty of the Moscow State University
142290, Russia, Pushchino, Institute of Theoretical and
Experimental Biophysics of RAS.
Correspondence to: Simon Shnoll
shnoll@pbc.iteb.serpukhov.su
Abstract. We performed the comparison of the histogram patterns of photomultiplier dark current fluctuations with measurements made in two laboratories 2000 km distant from each other: in International Institute of Biophysics (Neuss, Germany) and in Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia). It is shown that similar form of appropriate histograms is positively more often realized at both locations at the same local time. This confirms the previous conclusion that dynamics of form of histogram in different processes correlates with Earth rotation.
1. Introduction
The conclusion about non-random dynamics of changes of different experiment result distributions was made on the basis of long term investigation (Shnoll et al, 1998, see references therein). At each particular moment of time these distributions are modulated by external force of, likely, cosmophysical origin. The changes in time of histogram patterns, or structure of distributions (peaks and gaps amplitude and relative distance among them) were investigated. The histograms correspond to non-overlapped portions of time series. The probability of similar histogram forms occurrence was shown to be positively higher (with significance level of 10-4-10-13) for neighboring time intervals ("near zone effect") as well as it increases for periods of one day, 27 days and a year (Shnoll et al, 1998, 1999).
It was also shown that probability of occurrence of similar histogram patterns is higher for the synchronous measurements of the processes of the different nature, from biochemical reaction kinetics to intensity of radioactive decay. This synchronization of histogram patterns takes place for long distance between objects (up to 4000 km) as well.
The presence of one-day period indicated that rotation of the Earth is of primary importance, hence, the occurrences of similar histogram forms at different locations will be related to the rotation dynamics.
It was impossible, however, to figure out is this synchronization governed by local or absolute time, because all our measurements were made at the same time zone so far.
In order to clarify the origin of the one-day period of appearance of a given histogram pattern it is necessary to figure out does this synchronization at different locations take place by local or by absolute time.
For this purpose L.V.Belousov at Neuss (Germany) and V.L.Voeikov at Moscow (Russia) performed the measurements of photomultiplier dark current fluctuations. The measurements were performed in pulse counting regime. We compared the patterns of histogram made by data obtained in these two laboratories.
In this work the distance between objects of investigation was about 2000 km, that corresponds to 2 hours of difference in local time. It allowed us to distinguish between local and absolute time when comparing histogram sets.
It is shown that the structure of distributions (form of appropriate histograms) is similar with high probability at the same local time, determined by geographic location of two laboratories. This result confirms the relationship between the appearance of similar histograms and Earth rotation. The corresponding result was obtained upon comparison of histograms, obtained by measurements of a-radioactivity in Max Plank Institute of Aeronomy (Lindau, Germany) and in Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of RAS (Pushchino, Russia) (Zenchenko et al, 2000).
2. Materials and methods
The amplitude of photomultiplier dark current fluctuations was measured in the regime of individual photon counting. We used the photomultiplier (type 9750QB/1, EMI Electronics Ltd, Middlesex, UK) of liquid scintillation radioactivity counter Mark-II (Nuclear-Chicago, NL) at Moscow and photomultiplier (type EMI 9558 QA, cooled down to –20oC) used in the device measuring super-weak luminescence. Experiment started at 9 am September 25, 1999 (by local time at both locations) and lasted two days with 12-second intervals between measurements.
Histograms correspond to non-overlapping fragments of time series, each containing 30 points and therefore reflecting 6 minutes period of measurement. We obtained 480 histograms from Moscow experiment and 484 histograms from Neuss. The sequent histograms were rearranged by assigning random index numbers to them and then expert estimated their similarity. The final step was the calculation of the distribution of time intervals between similar histograms. We used especially designed software to perform all these operations (Shnoll et al, 1998b), more detailed description of which one can find in (Shnoll et al, 1999).
Fig. 1 Distribution of occurrence of similar histograms (N) vs.
time interval (t) between them, based on the results of
synchronous measurements of photomultiplier dark current
fluctuations at Neuss and at Moscow. The lines show the boundary
of 0.99% confidence interval, the probabilities of random
realization of the highest pikes are indicated.
3. Results
The main result of the performed investigation is presented on Fig. 1 as the distribution of time intervals between similar histograms at Neuss and Moscow. The total number of pairs of similar histograms we found is 10,027 or 4.32% of 232,320 possible combinations. The horizontal axis corresponds to time intervals between similar histograms with local time being used at both Neuss and Moscow. The vertical axis shows the number of pairs of similar histograms with given time interval between them.
One can see on Fig. 1 that the most significant deviations from random distribution take place for time interval between similar histograms equal to 0 and –6 minutes (0.1 hour). There were 47 and 42 pairs of similar histograms found and the probabilities to obtain them randomly are 10-7 and 10-5, correspondingly. It should be noted that the difference of longitudes between laboratories corresponds to 124 minutes difference of local time, or –4 minutes at the above figure. Thus, the shift from zero of the maximum of the distribution of intervals between similar histograms is equal with high precision to the difference between real local time and zone time. This confirms that the above peak is due to Earth rotation. The same result was obtained by similar comparisons of histogram patterns with a -activity of 239Pu measured at Pushchino (Russia, Moscow region) and that of 228Ra (Germany, Lindau, Max Plank Institute of Aeronomy) (Zenchenko et al, 2000).
The assumption of the relationship of Earth rotation with dynamics of changes of histogram patterns is consistent with our data about the presence of one-day period of appearance of similar histograms [1]. Figure 2 shows the result of the search for the period of repeated appearance of the given histogram pattern with the time series obtained at Neuss being analyzed. There were 20000 comparisons made, 2044 pairs were found similar. The highest value (62) is at 23 hours 54 minutes, i.e. the time interval 6 minutes shorter than solar day. The probability to obtain this value by accidental coincidence is less than 10-5.
Reproducing this result by using other data would lead to the important conclusion about period equal to sidereal day, i.e. about the dependence of histogram pattern upon the position of laboratory relative to the star coordinates. To test this hypothesis is the goal for the further investigation.
4. Discussion
It is shown that the probability of histogram patterns similarity for photomultiplier dark current measurements increases at the same local time at distant locations.
Taking into account the analogous results obtained from analysis of other processes (radioactive decay and chemical reaction rate fluctuations) the conclusion has been made that the dynamics of structure of distribution of amplitudes of fluctuations in different processes is related to the Earth rotation.
Acknowledgements. Authors are grateful to V.A.Kolombet and E.V.Deshcherevskaya for invaluable discussion.
We are obliged to Dr. T. Peterson for his generous support.
The work was supported by Russian Foundation of Fundamental Investigation grant of Leading Scientific Schools N.96-15-97853
References
1. Shnoll S.E., Kolombet V.A., Pozharskii E.V, Zenchenko T.A, Zvereva I.M. & Konradov A.A..(1998a) - On discrete states due to macroscopic fluctuations. Uspehi Fizicheskih Nauk (Advances in Physical Sciences), v.168 (10), pp 1129-1140
2. Shnoll S.E., Kolombet V.A., Zenchenko T.A., Pozharskii E.V., Zvereva I.M. & Konradov A.A. (1998b). - Cosmophysical Origin of "Macroscopic Fluctuations" - Biophysics, v.43 (5), pp.864-870
3. Shnoll S.E., Pozharskii E.V., Zenchenko T.A., Kolombet V.A., Zvereva & Konradov A.A. (1999) - Fine structure of distributions in measurements of different processes as affected by geophysical and cosmophysical factors.- Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Part A: Solid Earth and Geodesy, 24 (8), 711-714
4. Zenchenko T.A., Wilken B., Zenchenko K.I., Pozharsky E.V., Fedorov M.V., Kuzhevskii B.M., Kolombet V.A., Konradov A.A., Axford I. & Shnoll S.E. (2000) - Probability of histogram patterns coincidence in radioactivity measurements at distant laboratories is the highest in pairs with zero local time lag. - Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Part A: (this issue)
