Faster than light neutrinos? A quick calculation

[Motown_Johnny]

http://usersguidetotheuniverse.com/?p=2169


Faster than light neutrinos? A quick calculation

^snip^

This was an explosion about 160,000 light years from earth. The thing is, the neutrinos and the photons from the explosion reached us at almost exactly the same time. In the cause of intellectual honestly, I need to point out that the neutrinos were detected first, by about 3 hours, but this is because the envelope of the explosion was optically thick and the photons had to bounce around a while, while the neutrinos just streamed right out.

But how much of a delay between neutrinos and photons would we expect if the OPERA result applied?



In other words, if the effect really were this large, we would have seen the neutrinos from SN 1987A way back in 1984. Yeah, we would have noticed that.


I don’t want to be too glib, however. There are a couple of key differences:

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. The comment section is well worth the read

I think this discovery will be debated for some time until another particle accelerator can validate Cern.

Thanks for the link.

Damn.... I want that damn neutrino warp drive.

[Puzzler]

2. Could neutrinos appear to be traveling faster than the speed of light...

... because they are not taking the same path as other particles? I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but maybe a "straight" line between "a" and "b" for a neutrino is less in distance that a straight line between "a" and "b" for the rest of us.

[nebenaube]

3. Hmm...

Edit, deleted...

[caraher]

4. This would explain one mystery with another

That's possible, but then you have to explain how this alternate path is shorter - whether by implying space is warped in some way unpredicted by genral relativity, or by somehow invoking travel through extra dimensions we have no (other?) experimental evidence for.

[Motown_Johnny]

6. My best guess would be some type of quantum tunneling effect which

is taking place where matter is present and is not applicable in space. This could account for the variance of speeds, actually traveling faster through the Earth than from the supernova.


This is more in line with the "shortcut through another dimension" explanation that has been suggested.


I'm not sure that an actual bend in space could be applicable here. If it were might not the beam have missed it's target altogether?



I'm still not buying in though. To soon for me.

[laconicsax]

5. Recommend. There's more evidence that neutrinos aren't superluminal than not.