Limits on charge non-conservation from possible seasonal variations of the solar neutrino experiments

Abstract

Variable speed of light (VSL) theories generically lead to large violations of charge conservation that can be written in terms of a dimensionless parameter $\lambda$. It is shown that the motion of the Earth with respect to the Sun could lead to a seasonal variation for the SAGE and GALLEX-GNO experiments and analyzing the reported counting rates for these experiments, a very stringent bound $\lambda \le 2 \times 10^{-19} $ is obtained, some $10^9$ times smaller than previous ones. Furthermore, a bound on the lifetime of the $\null^{71}{\rm Ga} \to \null^{71} {\rm Ge}$ charge-nonconserving decay in VSL theories is found as: $ \tau_{\rm CNC} \ge 1.4 \times 10^{27} {\rm years}$. Similarly a new upper limit for the ratio of the charge-nonconserving to the normal weak decay of the neutron in VSL theories is obtained: $\Gamma(n \to p + \nu_e + \bar{\nu}_e) /\Gamma(n \to p + e + \bar{\nu}_e) \le 2 \times 10^{-27}$.