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How superluminal motion can lead to backward time travel

Popular Physics 2015-09-10 v2

Abstract

It is commonly asserted that superluminal particle motion can enable backward time travel, but little has been written providing details. It is shown here that the simplest example of a "closed loop" event -- a twin paradox scenario where a single spaceship both traveling out and returning back superluminally -- does {\it not} result in that ship straightforwardly returning to its starting point before it left. However, a more complicated scenario -- one where the superluminal ship first arrives at an intermediate destination moving subluminally -- can result in backwards time travel. This intermediate step might seem physically inconsequential but is shown to break Lorentz-invariance and be oddly tied to the sudden creation of a pair of spacecraft, one of which remains and one of which annihilates with the original spacecraft.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.1505.07489,
  title  = {How superluminal motion can lead to backward time travel},
  author = {Robert J. Nemiroff and David M. Russell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.07489},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

25 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, text improved, references added