On August 17, 2017, the first gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star inspiral (GW170817) was detected by Advanced LIGO and Advanced VIRGO. Here we present radioactive β-decay rates of three independent sources 44Ti, 60Co and 137Cs, monitored during the same period by a precision experiment designed to investigate the decay of long-lived radioactive sources. We do not find any significant correlations between decay rates in a 5\,h time interval following the GW170817 observation. This contradicts a previous claim published in this journal of an observed 2.5σ Pearson Correlation between fluctuations in the number of observed decays from two β-decaying isotopes (32Si and 36Cl) in the same time interval. By correcting for the choice of an arbitrary time interval, we find no evidence of a correlation above 1.5σ confidence. In addition, we argue that such analyses on correlations in arbitrary time intervals should always correct for the so-called Look-Elsewhere effect by quoting the global significance.
@article{arxiv.1909.06990,
title = {Testing claims of the GW170817 binary neutron star inspiral affecting $\beta$-decay rates},
author = {P. A. Breur and J. C. P. Y. Nobelen and L. Baudis and A. Brown and A. P. Colijn and R. Dressler and R. F. Lang and A. Massafferri and C. Pumar and C. Reuter and D. Schumann and M. Schumann and S. Towers and R. Perci},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.06990},
year = {2020}
}