🚀 go-pugleaf

Scott Chase writes:

> And there has been no resolution of the discrepancy between those experiments
> which see it and those which don't - i.e., no explanation of why the
> spectrometers miss it if it is really there or why the solid state detetors
> get such convincing phony signals is it is not.  Until this issue is settled,
> it seems to me that the entire question remains open.

Actually, I have heard a semi-plausible explanation for why
spectrometers might miss it even if it's really there.  The claim is
that due to field nonuniformity, these spectrometers have a nonlinear
response.  (The functions to account for this often have many
parameters which must be measured, calculated, or determined by a
least-squares fit.)

If there is an error in the response function (e.g., in incorrect
coefficient in the quadratic term), then, supposedly, the effect of a
kink 17 keV below the endpoint could be obscured.  This is a
particularly serious problem for the groups that simultaneously fit
for the spectrum and the response function.

(It sounds counterintuitive, of course, that a sudden kink could be
masked by this kind of global effect.  Remember, though, that the
"kink" isn't something that's seen by eye: it's an artifact of a 
statistical procedure.)

Caveat: I, like Scott, am from LBL, and folks here, both theorists and
experimentalists, are rather more receptive to the "17 keV neutrino"
than elsewhere.  I agree with Scott that the issue is still open.
--
Matthew Austern              I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band 
(510) 644-2618               of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
matt@physics.berkeley.edu    taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
austern@theorm.lbl.gov       multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
austern@lbl.bitnet	     me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.