English

Three errors in the article: "The OPERA neutrino velocity result and the synchronisation of clocks"

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2011-10-19 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

We found three mistakes in the article " The OPERA neutrino velocity result and the synchronisation of clocks" by Contaldi \cite{Contaldi}. First, the definition of the angle of the latitude in the geoid description leads to a prolate spheroid (rugby ball shape) instead of an oblate spheroid with the usual equatorial flattening. Second, Contaldi forgot a cosine of the latitude in the centripetal contribution term. And last but not least, a profound conceptual mistake was done in believing that an atomic clock or any timekeeper apparatus was carried in a journey by car or plane between CERN and Gran Sasso; instead of that atomic clocks are continuously resynchronized through a GPS device, and the variation of the potential term applies only for the neutrino travel itself. Thus instead of a Δt30ns\Delta t \approx 30ns correction claimed by the author in a travel of 12 hours plus 4 days at rest for an atomic clock, we have found a time correction only for the neutrino itself Δt=3.881016s\Delta t=3.88 \, 10^{-16} s! That means, that this paper \cite{Contaldi} does not give the right explanation why the neutrino is seen travelling faster than the speed of light in the OPERA neutrino experiment.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1110.2909,
  title  = {Three errors in the article: "The OPERA neutrino velocity result and the synchronisation of clocks"},
  author = {Olivier Besida},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1110.2909},
  year   = {2011}
}