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arXiv:1110.3071

Wave packet distortion and superluminal neutrinos

Maria Cristina De Sanctis

Published Oct 13, 2011• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

An interpretation of the superluminal velocity observed by OPERA collaboration is given in terms wave packet distortion of ultrarelativistic massive neutrinos. Standard quantum-mechanical time evolution of physical states can explain the observed Delta x/Delta t > c without violating the fundamental principles of special relativity.
DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1110.3071

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First we call the attention that velocity defined by ratio between some intervals of space and time respectively is sometimes ambiguous, in the framework of quantum theory. Velocity in general is not possible to be well defined as some generator of certain space-time symmetry operation. Then in section 3 by analyzing the OPERA experiment we show that the OPERA Collaboration may have measured the phase speed of the neutrino wave function. Employing a very (maybe too) simple model which is just a reproduction from Brillouin's classical book, we demonstrate the phase velocity and group velocity. These are just a qualitative illustration rather than aiming to quantitively explain the OPERA data. However, how to rigorously define the phase containing the particle production ordering information as a space-time distribution observable in QFT needs more investigations. Due to the finite life time of the pions (w.r.t. its flying time in the 1 km long tunnel) which decay to the muon neutrinos, the wave form for neutrinos recorded by OPERA is deformed from that of the proton. Such an effect is estimated to lead to an advanced time displacement of the order of 100ns, which coincides with the measured. Such an effect can only be significant when measuring phase speed and the recorded neutrino events per extraction of proton smaller than one, as the OPERA case.
The result of the OPERA experiment revealed that the velocity of muon-neutrinos was larger than the speed of light. We argue that this apparent superluminal velocity can be interpreted as a weak value, which is a new concept recently studied in the context of quantum physics. The OPERA experiment setup forms a scheme that manifests the neutrino velocity as a weak value. The velocity defined in the scheme of weak measurement can exceed the speed of light. The weak velocity is not a concept associated to a single phenomenon but it is a statistical concept defined by accumulating data at separated places and by comparing the data. Neither information nor physical influence is conveyed at the weak velocity. Thus the superluminal velocity in the sense of weak value does not contradict the causality law. We propose also a model for calculating the neutrino velocity with taking neutrino oscillation into account.
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Non-dispersive wave packet for massless fermions is formulated on the basis of squeezed coherent states that are put in a form of common eigenfunction for the Hamiltonian and the helicity operator, starting from the Dirac equation. The wave packet thus constructed is demonstrated to propagate at a constant velocity as that of light. This explicit expression of wave packet for the massless fermions can facilitate theoretical analysis of problems where a wave packet is of formal significance. Furthermore, extensive wave packet may result in a superluminal velocity statistics if determined from the time-of-flight measurement, as recently done on muon neutrinos, when a threshold particle flux or energy transfer, which is eventually referred to the propagation of wave packet, to invoke a detection event is assumed.
An explanation for superluminal phenomena based on wave-particle duality of photons is suggested. A single photon may be regarded as a wave packet, whose spatial extension is its coherence volume. As a photon propagates as a wave train in vacuum, its velocity is just the speed of light. When it tunnels through a barrier as a particle, its wave function collapses and it will travel faster than light. Superluminal motion can occur only within the coherence length and the time constrained by uncertainty principle. A massive particle cannot be superluminal during the tunneling process. So superluminality does not violate causality. As for the superluminal and negative group velocities in anomalously dispersive medium, they are merely reshaping effect of the pulse, and they will become subluminal at large distances. A couple of experiments are proposed to test the superluminal phenomena.