A Viable Superluminal Hypothesis: Tachyon Emission from
Orthopositronium
M. Skalsey’, R.S. Conti’, J.J. Engbrecht’, D.W. Gidley’, R.S. Vallery’, P. W.
Zitzewitz2
‘Randall Laboratory of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2Department of Natural Sciences, University of Michigan: Dearborn, Dearborn, MI
(734) 763-3464; skalsey@umich. edu
Abstract. 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 oPs 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.
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