Relativistic Superluminal Neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper proposes a scalar field model sourced by the earth that could explain the OPERA neutrino anomaly by causing local superluminal neutrino propagation, with velocity depending on baseline distance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scalar field coupling mechanism that modifies neutrino propagation speed, providing a potential explanation for superluminal neutrinos observed in OPERA.

Findings

Scalar field coupling can induce superluminal neutrino speeds.

Neutrino velocity depends on baseline distance, turning subluminal beyond Earth's radius.

Model aligns with OPERA anomaly at a 1 TeV coupling scale.

Abstract

We present a possible solution to the reported OPERA anomaly for the speed of neutrinos, based on the idea that it is a local effect caused by a scalar field sourced by the earth. The coupling of the scalar to neutrinos effectively changes the background metric where neutrinos propagate, leading to superluminality. The strength of the coupling is set by a new mass scale, which should be at $1\, {\rm TeV}$ to account for the OPERA anomaly. Moreover, if this scenario is valid, the neutrino velocity depends on the baseline distance between the emission and detection points in such a way that superluminal signals turn to subluminal ones for baseline distances roughly larger than the earth radius.