The Phantom of the OPERA: Superluminal Neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper reviews experimental measurements of neutrino velocities from various sources, discusses theoretical interpretations of superluminal neutrinos, and examines the challenges and potential frameworks for understanding these results.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of experimental data and explores theoretical models, including Lorentz violation, to explain possible superluminal neutrino velocities.

Findings

OPERA neutrino velocity measurements are reviewed

Theoretical scenarios for superluminal neutrinos are discussed

Covariant Lorentz violation may reconcile experimental results

Abstract

This report presents a brief review on the experimental measurements of the muon neutrino velocities from the OPERA, Fermilab and MINOS experiments and that of the (anti)-electron neutrino velocities from the supernova SN1987A, and consequently on the theoretical attempts to attribute the data as signals for superluminality of neutrinos. Different scenarios on how to understand and treat the background fields in the effective field theory frameworks are pointed out. Challenges on interpreting the OPERA result as a signal of neutrino superluminality are briefly reviewed and discussed. It is also pointed out that a covariant picture of Lorentz violation may avoid the refutation on the OPERA experiment.