The Possibility of the Existence of Superluminal Neutrinos: A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

The amazing result of the first OPERA experiment has explored a possibility for the existence of superluminal neutrinos. Although the successive experiments would have negated such possibility, but in the framework of extended standard model a mechanism is proposed to address that superluminal nature of neutrinos. The idea is based on the assumption that the neutrinos might behave as superluminal in a particular experiment, whereas in the most of the experiments that remain subluminal. In the proposed model, the mass matrix of Dirac as well as Majorana neutrino field is diagonalized to obtain two eigen values; one becomes imaginary and larger in magnitude, whereas the other one is real but smaller. The resulting fields are found to be the mixture of left- and right-handed fields, unlike the concept of seesaw mechanism. The mass generation of neutrinos in the left-right symmetric model is examined. It is also proposed here that the oscillation of neutrinos is the two-fold process consisting of mass eigenstates doublet having imaginary mass and that with real mass; the domination of one over another results the subluminal as well as superluminal channel of neutrino oscillation.