TY - JOUR
T1 - Apparent superluminal neutrino propagation caused by nonlinear coherent interactions in matter
AU - Brustein, Ram
AU - Semikoz, Dmitri
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Pierre Binetruy, Stavros Katsanevas and David Langlois for helpful discussions. We are grateful to Nikos Vassilopoulos for providing us information on the CNGS neutrino beam. Finally, we thank Alexander Dolgov and Shmuel Nussinov for critical reading of the manuscript and useful comments. The research of R.B. is supported by Israel Science Foundation grant 239/10 .
PY - 2012/1/5
Y1 - 2012/1/5
N2 - Quantum coherence can significantly increase the strength of the forward scattering of neutrinos propagating through the Earth and interacting with matter. The index of refraction of the neutrinos propagating in a medium and hence their phase velocity is determined by the forward scattering. So, depending on the nature of the interaction of neutrinos with matter, their phase velocity can be larger than the speed of light in vacuum. We show that such effects can explain the apparent superluminal propagation of muon neutrinos found recently by the OPERA experiment. Our proposal explains why the neutrino oscillations and the propagation of neutrinos from supernova 1987A are unaffected. It can be verified by changing the amount of neutrino coherence or by changing the composition of matter in which they propagate.
AB - Quantum coherence can significantly increase the strength of the forward scattering of neutrinos propagating through the Earth and interacting with matter. The index of refraction of the neutrinos propagating in a medium and hence their phase velocity is determined by the forward scattering. So, depending on the nature of the interaction of neutrinos with matter, their phase velocity can be larger than the speed of light in vacuum. We show that such effects can explain the apparent superluminal propagation of muon neutrinos found recently by the OPERA experiment. Our proposal explains why the neutrino oscillations and the propagation of neutrinos from supernova 1987A are unaffected. It can be verified by changing the amount of neutrino coherence or by changing the composition of matter in which they propagate.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84155165378&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.physletb.2011.11.039
DO - 10.1016/j.physletb.2011.11.039
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84155165378
SN - 0370-2693
VL - 706
SP - 462
EP - 464
JO - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
JF - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
IS - 4-5
ER -