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Breaking the light speed barrier

Silagadze, Zurab (2012) Breaking the light speed barrier. [Preprint]

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Abstract

As it is well known, classical special relativity allows the existence of three different kinds of particles: bradyons, luxons and tachyons. Bradyons have non-zero mass and hence always travel slower than light. Luxons are particles with zero mass, like the photon, and they always travel with invariant velocity. Tachyons are hypothetical superluminal particles that always move faster than light. The existence of bradyons and luxons is firmly established,
while the tachyons were never reliably observed. In quantum field theory, the appearance of tachyonic degrees of freedom indicates vacuum instability rather than a real existence of the faster-than-light particles. However, recent controversial claims of the OPERA experiment about superluminal neutrinos triggered a renewed interest in superluminal particles. Driven by a striking analogy of the old Frenkel-Kontorova model of a dislocation dynamics to the
theory of relativity, we conjecture in this note a remarkable possibility of existence of the forth type of particles, elvisebrions, which can be superluminal. The characteristic feature of elvisebrions, distinguishing
them from tachyons, is that they are outside the realm of
special relativity and their energy remains finite (or may even turn to zero) when the elvisebrion velocity approaches the light velocity.

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Item Type: Preprint
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Silagadze, Zurabsilagadze@inp.nsk,su
Keywords: Special relativity, superluminal motion, tachyons, elvisebrions, solitons.
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User: Zurab Silagadze
Date Deposited: 19 Oct 2012 16:08
Last Modified: 19 Oct 2012 16:08
Item ID: 9378
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date: 13 January 2012
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9378

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