Faster Than a Speeding Photon: How Tachyons Challenge Modern Physics

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Motion at speeds beyond the speed of light is one of the most controversial issues in physics. Hypothetical particles that could move at superluminal speeds, called tachyons (from the Greek tachys - fast, quick), are the enfant terrible' of modern physics. Until recently, they were widely regarded as creations that do not fit into the special theory of relativity.

At least three reasons for the non-existence of tachyons within quantum theory were known so far. The first: the ground state of the tachyon field was supposed to be unstable, which would mean that such superluminal particles would form `avalanches'. The second: a change in the inertial observer was supposed to lead to a change in the number of particles observed in his reference system, yet the existence of, say, seven particles cannot depend on who is looking at them. The third reason: the energy of the superluminal particles could take on negative values.

[...] It turned out that the boundary conditions' that determine the course of physical processes include not only the initial state but also the final state of the system. The results of the international team of researchers have just been published in the prestigious journal Physical Review D.

To put it simply: in order to calculate the probability of a quantum process involving tachyons, it is necessary to know not only its past initial state but also its future final state. Once this fact was incorporated into the theory, all the difficulties mentioned earlier completely disappeared and tachyon theory became mathematically consistent. It's a bit like internet advertising - one simple trick can solve your problems," says Andrzej Dragan, chief inspirer of the whole research endeavor.

The idea that the future can influence the present instead of the present determining the future is not new in physics. However, until now, this type of view has at best been an unorthodox interpretation of certain quantum phenomena, and this time we were forced to this conclusion by the theory itself. To make room' for tachyons we had to expand the state space," concludes Dragan.

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