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JOURNALS // Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications // Archive

SIGMA, 2014 Volume 10, 005, 21 pp. (Mi sigma870)

This article is cited in 6 papers

Why Do the Relativistic Masses and Momenta of Faster-than-Light Particles Decrease as their Speeds Increase?

Judit X. Madarásza, Mike Stannettb, Gergely Székelya

a Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Hungary Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 127, Budapest 1364, Hungary
b University of Sheffield, Department of Computer Science, 211 Portobello, Sheffield S1 4DP, United Kingdom

Abstract: It has recently been shown within a formal axiomatic framework using a definition of four-momentum based on the Stückelberg–Feynman–Sudarshan–Recami “switching principle” that Einstein's relativistic dynamics is logically consistent with the existence of interacting faster-than-light inertial particles. Our results here show, using only basic natural assumptions on dynamics, that this definition is the only possible way to get a consistent theory of such particles moving within the geometry of Minkowskian spacetime. We present a strictly formal proof from a streamlined axiom system that given any slow or fast inertial particle, all inertial observers agree on the value of $\mathsf{m}\cdot \sqrt{|1-v^2|}$, where $\mathsf{m}$ is the particle's relativistic mass and $v$ its speed. This confirms formally the widely held belief that the relativistic mass and momentum of a positive-mass faster-than-light particle must decrease as its speed increases.

Keywords: special relativity; dynamics; faster-than-light particles; superluminal motion; tachyons; axiomatic method; first-order logic.

MSC: 70A05; 03B30; 83A05

Received: September 17, 2013; in final form January 7, 2014; Published online January 11, 2014

Language: English

DOI: 10.3842/SIGMA.2014.005



Bibliographic databases:
ArXiv: 1309.3713


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