Has science ever proved the existence of a Tachyon?

Question

A Tachyon is a hypothetical particle that travels faster than the speed of light.

Answer 1

Tachyons might be under our noses all this time, only that we've been looking in the wrong places. Nobody's ever detected particles with masses going faster than the speed of light, but quantum deBroglie waves do go faster. In fact, they ALWAYS go faster than the speed of light, and have all the same properties as tachyons. The difference is, deBroglie waves are phase waves in quantum physics, not real matter. Because in order to find the properties of tachyons, imaginary time (that is, i t, where i is Sqrt(-1) and t is time) is substitute into the relativistic equations, and I think when you do that, you can't expect real particles with similar properties of those at sub-light speeds.

Answer 2

Nope. The tachyon was invented to answer the question "But what if we could travel faster than light speed"? In other words, if v > c in the Lorenz Transform = L(v) = 1/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2), what would that require?

Clearly when L(v > c), the result is an imaginary number i = sqrt(any negative number) by definition. For example, sqrt(-1) = i, the sqrt(-2) = 1.14i, and so on.

Thus, when we solve for M = m L(v), the rest mass traveling at v > 0 would be Mi, an imaginary number because L(v > c) is an imaginary number. So, it is clear that the tachyon (flying at v > c) would have an imaginary relativistic mass (Mi). So, I think it's safe to say, the tachyon is imaginary; that is to say, it's not real.

Answer 3

No they haven't - most physicists suspect they don't exist at all.

They've fallen out of favour with even the most exotic physical theories.

Answer 4

Not yet; there has been some interesting speculation though.