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Experimental Tests For Randomness Of Quantum Decay Examined As A Markov Process [Post-Print], Mark P. Silverman, Wayne Strange

Faculty Scholarship

The number of decays from four distinct nuclear disintegration processes were recorded over a long succession of counting intervals, converted into sequences of binary outcomes based on parity, and examined as a discrete two-state Markov process. The difference in single-step transition probabilities was found to be null to within an uncertainty of order 10−3, supporting the proposition that quantum particles decay at random unaffected by their past history.