Search for correlations between solar flares and decay rate of radioactive nuclei

Abstract The decay rate of three different radioactive sources ( 40 K, 137 Cs and nat Th) has been measured with NaI and Ge detectors. Data have been analyzed to search for possible variations in coincidence with the two strongest solar flares of the years 2011 and 2012. No significant deviations from standard expectation have been observed, with a few 10 −4 sensitivity. As a consequence, we could not find any effect like that recently reported by Jenkins and Fischbach: a few per mil decrease in the decay rate of 54 Mn during solar flares in December 2006.