Related papers: Tachyons and superluminal boosts
We discuss the most general form of the Lorentz transformation in 1+1 dimensional spacetime, focusing mainly on its superluminal branch. For this purpose, we introduce the 2-velocity of a reference frame and the clockwork postulate. Basic…
The dynamical behavior of tachyon field with an inverse potential is investigated in loop quantum cosmology. It reveals that the late time behavior of tachyon field with this potential leads to a power-law expansion. In addition, an…
The transformation of the $SL(2,R)/U(1)$ black hole under a boost of the subgroup U(1) is studied. It is found that the tachyon vertex operators of the black hole go into those of the $c=1$ conformal field theory coupled to gravity. The…
Causal rigid particles whose action includes an {\it arbitrary} dependence on the world-line extrinsic curvature are considered. General classes of solutions are constructed, including {\it causal tachyonic} ones. The Hamiltonian…
It was shown that in the small Wigner group there is a one-parameter subgroup of the Lorentz transformations, which leave unchanged not only the momentum of the fermion with spin h/2, but also its spin characteristics. This is the group of…
It has been found in several papers that, because of quantum corrections, light front can propagate with superluminal velocity in gravitational fields and even in flat space-time across two conducting plates. We show that, if this is the…
The possibility is discussed of superluminal motion of non-tachyonic (i.e. moving with the instantaneous speed v<c) bodies within general relativity. It is shown that in some occasions quantum field theory apparently prohibits such motion,…
Rolling tachyon in linear dilaton background is examined by using an effective field theory with gauge field on an unstable D-brane in bosonic string theory. Several solutions are identified with tachyon matter equipped with constant…
Rolling tachyon field models are among the candidates suggested as explanations for the recent acceleration of the Universe. In these models the field is expected to interact with gauge fields and lead to variations of the fine-structure…
The question of whether it is possible or not to surpass the speed of light is already centennial. The special theory of relativity took the existence of a speed limit as a principle, the light postulate, which has proven to be enormously…
In order to generalize the relativistic notion of boost to the case of non inertial particles and to general relativity, we come back to the definition of Lie group of Lorentz matrices and its Lie algebra and we study how this group acts on…
These lecture notes were prepared for a 25-hour course for advanced undergraduate students participating in Perimeter Institute's Undergraduate Summer Program. The lectures cover some of what is currently known about the possibility of…
Einstein's theory of special relativity(SR) and the principle of causality imply that the speed of any moving object can not exceed that of light in a vacuum($c$).However,there were many attempts in literature discussing the particle moving…
Many candidate fundamental theories contain scalar fields that can acquire spacetime-varying expectation values in a cosmological context. Such scalars typically obey Lorentz-violating effective dispersion relations. We illustrate this fact…
It is shown by numerical simulation that classical charged tachyons have self-orbiting helical solutions in a narrow neighborhood of certain discrete values for the velocity when the electromagnetic interaction is described by…
The apparent Lorentz invariance of the laws of physics does not imply that space-time is indeed minkowskian. Matter made of solutions of Lorentz-invariant equations would feel a relativistic space-time even if the actual space-time had a…
We construct momentum space expansions for the wave functions that solve the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations for tachyons, recognizing that the mass shell for such fields is very different from what we are used to for ordinary (slower than…
The OPERA Collaboration reported evidence for muonic neutrinos traveling slightly faster than light in vacuum. While waiting further checks from the experimental community, here we aim at exploring some theoretical consequences of the…
This article proves that elementary particles can violate the second postulate of the Special Theory of Relativity. According to Heisenberg's principle, superluminal particles are allowed in the theoretical framework of Quantum Mechanics.…
Within an axiomatic framework, we prove that the existence of faster than light particles is consistent with (does not contradict) the dynamics of Einstein's special relativity.