Interpreting OPERA results on superluminal neutrino

OPERA has claimed the discovery of superluminal propagation of neutrinos. We analyze the consistency of this claim with previous tests of special relativity. We find that reconciling the OPERA measurement with information from SN1987a and from neutrino oscillations requires stringent conditions. The superluminal limit velocity of neutrinos must be nearly flavor independent, must decrease steeply in the low-energy domain, and its energy dependence must depart from a simple power law. We construct illustrative models that satisfy these conditions, by introducing Lorentz violation in a sector with light sterile neutrinos. We point out that, quite generically, electroweak quantum corrections transfer the information of superluminal neutrino properties into Lorentz violations in the electron and muon sector, in apparent conflict with experimental data.     

A model of superluminal neutrinos

Motivated by the tentative observation of superluminal neutrinos by the OPERA experiment, we present a model of active-sterile neutrino oscillations in which sterile neutrinos are superluminal and active neutrinos appear superluminal by virtue of neutrino mixing. The model demonstrates some interesting possibilities and challenges that apply to a large class of models aiming to explain the OPERA result.     

Superluminal neutrinos at OPERA confront pion decay kinematics

Violation of Lorentz invariance (VLI) has been suggested as an explanation of the superluminal velocities of muon neutrinos reported by OPERA. In this Letter, we show that the amount of VLI required to explain this result poses severe difficulties with the kinematics of the pion decay, extending its lifetime and reducing the momentum carried away by the neutrinos. We show that the OPERA experiment limits α=(ν(ν)-c)/c<4×10(-6). We then take recourse to cosmic-ray data on the spectrum of muons and neutrinos generated in Earth's atmosphere to provide a stronger bound on VLI: (ν-c)/c<10(-12).     

Constraints on the mass of unstable neutrinos from the supernova

The cosmological constraint together with the information obtained from the supernova could be used to give a lower bound on the mass of unstable neutrinos. It is shown that if the only viable channel for the unstable neutrino decay is through three lighter neutrinos, the mass of this particle should be heavier than about 500 eV.     

Constraints on the masses and couplings of heavy Majorana right-handed neutrinos

The masses and couplings of heavy unstable right-handed Majorana neutrinos can be constrained using existing and expected future results from both accelerator and astrophysics experiments. In particular we examine limits on rare decay modes of particles containing s, c, and b quarks as well as the τ lepton and interpret these in terms of a hypothetical massive neutrino. In addition, cosmological limits result from a consideration of the nucleosynthesis epoch in the early universe.     

Superluminal neutrinos and extra dimensions: Constraints from the null energy condition

In light of the recent results from the OPERA Collaboration, indicating that neutrinos can travel superluminally, I review a simple extra-dimensional strategy for accommodating such behavior; and I also explain why it is hard in this strategy to avoid violating the null energy condition somewhere in the extra dimensions.     

Constraints on composite Dirac neutrinos from observations of galaxy clusters

Recently, to explain the origin of neutrino masses a model based on confining some hidden fermionic bound states into right-handed chiral neutrinos has been proposed. One of the consequences of condensing the hidden sector fields in this model is the presence of sterile composite Dirac neutrinos of keV mass, which can form viable warm dark matter particles. We have analyzed constraints on this model from the observations of satellite based telescopes to detect the sterile neutrinos in clusters of galaxies.     

Constraints on active and sterile neutrinos in an interacting dark energy cosmology

We investigate the impacts of dark energy on constraining massive(active/sterile) neutrinos in interacting dark energy(IDE)models by using the current observations. We employ two typical IDE models, the interacting w cold dark matter(IwCDM)model and the interacting holographic dark energy(IHDE) model, to make an analysis. To avoid large-scale instability, we use the parameterized post-Friedmann approach to calculate the cosmological perturbations in the IDE models. The cosmological observational data used in this work include the Planck cosmic microwave background(CMB) anisotropies data, the baryon acoustic oscillation data, the type Ia supernovae data, the direct measurement of the Hubble constant, the weak lensing data, the redshift-space distortion data, and the CMB lensing data. We find that the dark energy properties could influence the constraint limits of active neutrino mass and sterile neutrino parameters in the IDE models. We also find that the dark energy properties could influence the constraints on the coupling strength parameter β, and a positive coupling constant, β 0, can be detected at the 2.5σ statistical significance for the IHDE+ν_s model by using the all-data combination. In addition, we also discuss theHubble tension issue in these scenarios. We find that the H_0 tension can be effectively relieved by considering massive sterile neutrinos, and in particular in the IHDE+νsmodel the H_0 tension can be reduced to be at the 1.28σ level.     

Tachyons and superluminal wave groups

In the approximation that every inertial observer experiences a homogeneous, uniform flow of time and sees a space that is Euclidean, the arena of physics is Minkowskian and one speed is the same in all intertial frames. If a given intertial observer finds an infinitesimal source or particle traveling faster than this fundamental speed near a given event, the source must appear in some inertial frame spread over neighboring positions at a given time as a spacelike structure. If this structure persists over a period of proper time, it can be interpreted as a wave group. If it is conserved, it can be interpreted as a line or tube of force.