Can neutrinos sometimes move faster than light ;new C.E.R.N data
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Can neutrinos sometimes move faster than light ;new C.E.R.N data

[From: ] [author: ] [Date: 11-09-23] [Hit: ]
The particles involved are neutrinos, fiendishly difficult to work with because they rarely interact with matter. Thus particle accelerators must produce them in vast quantities in order to spot rare interactions with detectors when they do occur. They come in three types, and the experiment the team was running – dubbed OPERA – was designed to track neutrinos as they morph from one type to another as they travel.The team generated beams of neutrinos at CERN,......

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) say they have measured tiny subatomic particles traveling faster than light. The difference in speeds is tiny – some 60 billionths of a second over a distance of 454 miles. Even so, if other labs can reproduce the effect, physicists envision one of two far-reaching outcomes.

In one, the CERN team's results could bolster quantum theories of gravity – the last of nature's four fundamental forces scientists are trying to fit under the umbrella of quantum physics. Theories of quantum gravity suggest that at sufficiently high energies, particles can appear to travel faster than light because they traverse extra dimensions of space. The particles involved are neutrinos, fiendishly difficult to work with because they rarely interact with matter. Thus particle accelerators must produce them in vast quantities in order to spot rare interactions with detectors when they do occur. They come in three types, and the experiment the team was running – dubbed OPERA – was designed to track neutrinos as they morph from one type to another as they travel.

The team generated beams of neutrinos at CERN, which straddles the French-Swiss border. They aimed the beams at detectors in a cavern at Gran Sasso, Italy, some 450 miles away. With a set of detectors at CERN, and another at Gran Sasso, the team was measuring the neutrinos' travel time between the two. That's when the discrepancy began to emerge.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/09…

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To get this result, they had to measure a time interval of 2.43 ms = 2,430,000 ns to a precision of less than the 60 ns discrepancy they report, over a distance of 800+ km. That's 1 part in 40,000. They did this using GPS. Just a bit of systematic error would completely kill this result.

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As one neutrino physicist who was interviewed about this said,
"I wouldn't bet my wife and kids [that it will turn out to be due to systematic error], because they'd get mad. But I'd bet my house."

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That data is under a lot of speculation. The problem is less of can it happen and more of how much it will mess up from a physics standpoint.

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Some people at CERN believe that happened. They're looking for another lab to confirm.

That would be pretty amazing if true. Biggest revolution in physics in a century.
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