Constraints on the interpretation of the superluminal motion of neutrinos at OPERA

Abstract

Various approaches aim to describe the recent analysis by the OPERA experiment, which indicates that neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light. We demonstrate that any such theoretical or experimental explanation must not destroy the complicated (nonlinear) structure of the proton waveform recovered in the neutrino signal. As one example, consider that only a fraction of the neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light, such as sterile neutrinos. We fit the OPERA data including this fraction as a free variable, assuming that the OPERA result is correct. In our analysis, the best-fit values are 50% of the neutrinos being superluminal and (v-c)/c = 4.5 10^{-5}, where the neutrino velocity increases as the fraction of superluminal neutrinos decreases. The minimal fraction of superluminal neutrinos is found to be 17% (3 sigma), which is constrained by the non-linearity of the proton waveform. This minimal fraction challenges the hypothesis that only sterile neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light. In addition, we demonstrate that an experimental effect introducing a smearing between the proton waveform and neutrino signal, as expected for some systematical errors, is also limited by the shape of the waveform. Finally, we illustrate that even stronger constraints may be obtained from the recent analysis with a short-bunch beam, in spite of the low statistics.