Speed of the CERN Neutrinos released on 22.9.2011 - Was stated superluminality due to neglecting General Relativity?

TL;DR

The paper reanalyzes the CERN neutrino experiment data, suggesting that when accounting for Earth's gravity via General Relativity, neutrinos traveled at the speed of light, contradicting earlier claims of superluminal speeds.

Contribution

It introduces a correction for Earth's gravitational effects in neutrino speed measurements, challenging previous superluminal interpretations.

Findings

Neutrinos traveled at the speed of light when considering General Relativity.

Previous superluminal results were due to neglecting Earth's gravity.

The experiment effectively tested Einstein's gravity theory in a practical setting.

Abstract

During the years 2009 to 2011, neutrino beams were fired repeatedly from CERN towards a detector in Italy's Gran Sasso tunnel, some 4 deg south and 7 deg east of CERN, at a distance of 730.5 km, in the shape of short bunches of particles. Their time of flight (2.5 msec) was measured at high accuracy (nsec) with caesium clocks (Reich 2011). Remarkably, the CNGS team found a deficit of 61 nsec compared with propagation at the speed of light, and concluded at superluminal speeds, of order 10$^{-4.6}$. In this communication, I will argue that this is the first experiment to test Einstein's theory for the (weak) gravity field of Earth, with the result that the neutrinos propagated (just) luminally.