The velocity of neutrinos

Fran De Aquino

Maranhao State University, Physics Department, S.Luis/MA, Brazil.Copyright

2011 by Fran De Aquino. All Rights Reserve

Recently, the OPERA neutrino experiment at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory hasmeasured the velocity of neutrinos from the CERN CNGS beam over a baseline of about 730km. The experiment shows that neutrinos can have

superluminal

velocities. This result could, inprinciple, be taken as a clear violation of the Special Relativity. However, it will be show herethat neutrinos can actually travel at velocities faster than light speed, without violating SpecialRelativity.

Key words:

Neutrino mass, Neutrino interactions, Special relativity.

PACS: 14.60.Pq, 13.15.

g, 03.30.

The mass of the

electron neutrino

( )

is usually measured using the beta decay.The continuous spectrum of beta decayelectrons terminates at a maximal energy,which depends on the neutrino mass and onthe emitting nucleus type. Because of theway that the neutrino mass affects theelectron energy spectrum, the measuredquantity is the

square

of the neutrino mass.All recent measurements show that the

neutrino mass squared

negative

[1]. However, the square root of a negativenumber is an

imaginary

number

. Thus, themeasurements suggest that the

electronneutrino has an imaginary mass

. Assumingthat the neutrino has no

real mass

, andconsidering that the

imaginary momentum

has a

real

value, i.e.,

( ) ( ) ( ) ( )

realimimim

S I L

≡=

and, we can infer thatthe neutrino is an

imaginary particle

with ameasurable property;

the square of itsimaginary mass

( ) ( ) ( ) ( )

realimimgim

pV M p

≡=

The OPERA neutrino experiment [2]at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory(LNGS) was designed to perform the firstdetection of neutrino oscillations. Recently, itwas reported that the OPERA neutrinoexperiment had discovered neutrinos withvelocities greater than the light speed [3].The neutrinos in question appear to bereaching the detector 60 nanoseconds fasterthan light would take to cover the samedistance. That translates to a speed 0.002%higher than (the speedupper limit for

real

particles

in the

real

spacetime).

-1

m.s8299,792,45

The quantization of velocity showsthat there is a speed upper limit,

, for

imaginary par ticles

in the

real

spacetime(real Universe)

. This means that Einstein'sspeed limit

( )

not applies to imaginaryparticles propagating in the real spacetime.Theoretical predictions show that

[

112

.10

−

≈

smc

4].

Consequently, theimaginary particles, such as the neutrinos,can reaches velocities faster than light speed.Therefore, in the case of imaginary particles,we must replace

in the

Lorentztransformation

by in order togeneralize the equations of Special relativity.Thus, the

imaginary

kinetic energy of

imaginary particles

, for example, is writtenin the following form:

( )

icC

iim

( ) ( ) ( )

( )

( )( )( )( ) ( )( ) ( )

2022202220

111111

imimiiimimiimimimimiimiim

C mcV C mC V C mmK

⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎝ ⎛ −−==⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎝ ⎛ −−=−=

where is the

imaginary mass

of theparticle at rest. The expression above shows

( )

imi

The speed upper limit for

real

particles

in the

imaginary

spacetime is , because the relativistic expression of themass shows that the velocity of

real

particles cannot belarger than

any space-time

that the imaginary particle has a

real

velocity. This means that imaginary particlespropagating in the real spacetime can bedetected. This is the case, for example, of theneutrinos with observed in the OPERAneutrino experiment.

Note that the

imaginary kinetic energy

of the particle is what gives to the neutrinoits real velocity

( )

V K

→

. This solvestherefore, the problem of how the neutrinopropagates in the space.In addition, we can conclude that in theneutrino-electron reactions, mediated by theZ particle, the neutrino does not enter as areal mass but as a

real

angular

momentum

(spin ½). The real mass of the neutrino isnull, but the

real

angular

momentum

and the

imaginary

angular

momentum

of the neutrinoare not null. The