A viable superluminal hypothesis: Tachyon emission from orthopositronium

Tachyons are hypothetical particles that travel faster than the vacuum speed of light. Previous experiments have searched for, but have not found evidence of tachyons. Long-standing, anomalous measurements of the orthopositronium (o-Ps) decay rate are interpreted as evidence for two tachyons being occasionally emitted when o-Ps decays. Restricting the coupling of tachyon pairs to a single photon (no tachyon coupling to matter) yields a new theory where tachyons are only observed in o-Ps decay and not in the previous tachyon experiments. Combining the single photon coupling theory with all previous experiments predicts that these tachyons must deposit energy while traversing scintillator detectors. A new tachyon search experiment will use this energy loss prediction to attempt to find tachyons passing through the apparatus or set limits disproving the original o-Ps to tachyon hypothesis. Viewing an intense o-Ps source, a time-of-flight spectrometer uses the superluminal property of tachyons for identification. Several months of continuous data acquisition will be necessary to completely eliminate the o-Ps to tachyon hypothesis. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87640/2/1119_1.pd