Neutrino Speed Through the Multiverse

Researchers at Europe’s CERN have discovered something quite startling. Everyone should have heard by now that neutrinos sent 730 kilometers from a particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland to the OPERA detector in Gran Sasso, Italy arrived 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. These results have been previously demonstrated by a Chicago team in 2007. However, the accuracy of their equipment deemed the measurements statistically insignificant. CERN says that their margin of error is only 10 nanoseconds. CERN themselves want other research groups around the world to help verify these results before claiming the discovery. CERN spent three years on this project checking and rechecking the results before announcing it on September 22nd.
Before divulging into the explanation to these results, it is important to have a general understanding of the subatomic particle in question. Neutrinos are uncharged, fundamental, subatomic particles with mass close to zero. Since neutrinos have no electrical charge, they can travel through ordinary matter largely unaffected by electromagnetic forces. In fact, of the four fundamental forces of nature, it is only affected by weak nuclear forces. The majority of neutrinos penetrating the Earth come from nuclear reactions occurring on the sun.
Many critics say that CERN’s findings are absurd and that the measurements must contain some sort of unseen error. But this is merely an excuse to avoid finding an explanation and continuing our understanding of the universe. The distance between the neutrino source and its detector in Gran Sasso is known within 20 cm. Time is also measured with extremely high precision using GPS timing signals and a cesium atomic clock. Measurements and probability distribution functions were used to calculate the specific time the neutrinos left the source and arrived at the detector. By utilizing GPS signals, small moments from the Earth can be tracked. This method allowed the researchers to account for the 5.8 magnitude L’Aquila earthquake in 2009, which moved the detector by 7 cm. Physicists also took into account many other variables, such as day, night, and seasonal changes that could contribute to erroneous results. It is unlikely that the measurements contain any significant error. OPERA stated that the measurements have been confirmed at 6 sigma.
So why are people freaking out about this? Various sources state that superluminal velocities violate special relativity. Special relativity has two main axioms, one of which, states that the speed of light, c, is constant and is independent of the inertial frame of reference of the light source. Special relativity underlies all laws in mechanics and physics and has been proven with countless experiments. Without this fundamental concept, everything we know about everything will change.
Since the announcement of superluminal neutrinos, more than 80 publications have emerged, each trying to explain CERN’s observations, and doing so without violating special relativity. Many introduce the concept of Lorentz violations and invariance in neutrinos.
Some papers suggest the presence of extra dimensions as a possible justification of superluminal velocities without violating special relativity or causality. Our three dimensional universe can be viewed as a three or more dimensional membrane inside a higher dimensional or the bulk space. This is called the membrane universe. The membrane universe, in which we reside, is analogous to a plane existing in a three dimensional environment, the bulk space. Inside our membrane universe the maximum velocity c is the speed of light. In the bulk space, the maximum velocity can be several factors larger than velocity c. The reported neutrino velocities can be explained with this knowledge. During very high energy collisions, excitations may be shot out into the bulk space. As stated earlier, neutrinos react very weakly within our membrane universe, so they can escape into the bulk space more easily than other particles. Once neutrinos exit the membrane universe and enter the bulk space, their velocity will increase past the speed of light. The bulk space acts as a shortcut through our membrane universe and it will appear that neutrinos are actually travelling faster than the speed of light when they reenter. During the high energy collisions at CERN, neutrinos ‘jump’ orthogonally into the high dimensional space and travel perpendicularly along the membrane universe.
While electromagnetic, strong, and weak nuclear forces are bound to our membrane universe, gravitational forces are universal and affect the bulk space. Gravity, although weak, may pull the neutrinos back into our membrane universe. The high energy collisions at CERN may only shoot the neutrinos a few meters out of the membrane universe, so gravitational forces will quickly pull the particles back. Another possibility of why neutrinos reenter our membrane universe is the existence of multiple, parallel membrane universes that all constitute our own packed at some distance apart. Once the excited particles leave into the bulk space, they soon collide with a parallel membrane universe, which is actually the membrane universe they came from. Once they collide with the parallel membrane universe they get stuck and the neutrinos come back to normal neutrinos with velocities under c.
This is just one of theory that attempts to explain the observations at CERN last month. Many more go more in depth with their explanations and include some concepts that are very abstract. From the surface, superluminal neutrinos appear to be impossible. All it takes is some thought to make sense of it.