Friday, December 8, 2017, 3pm
Location: Planetary Hall Room 126
Robert Ehrlich
Department of Physics & Astronomy
George Mason University
The Mont Blanc neutrino burst
from SN 1987A: Were they m^2 = - 0.38 keV^2 tachyons or just a great
imitation?
Abstract
According
to conventional wisdom the 5-hour early Mont Blanc burst probably was
not
associated with SN 1987A, but if it was genuine, some exotic physics
explanation had to be responsible, such as a double ``bang" of the
collapsing core. Here we consider one truly exotic explanation, namely
faster-than-light tachyonic neutrinos having m^2=-0.38 keV^2. It is
shown that
the Mont Blanc burst may be consistent with the distinctive signature
of that
explanation i.e., an 8 MeV antineutrino line from SN 1987A, and that a
model of
core collapse supernovae involving dark matter particles of mass 8 MeV
would in
fact yield just such an 8 MeV neutrino line. Moreover, the dark matter
model
fits the observed spectrum of MeV gamma rays from the galactic center,
a place
where one would expect large amounts of dark matter to collect. Lastly,
it is
noted that the tachyonic interpretation of the Mont Blanc burst fits
the
author's unconventional 3+3 model of the neutrino mass states, and that
results
from the KATRIN experiment should prove or reject that model in a short
data-taking period.