How do observers moving faster than light in space perceive our world? According to theorists from the University of Warsaw and the University of Oxford, such a view will differ from the one we encounter every day, because there are not only spontaneous phenomena, but also particles moving along several paths. In addition, the concept of time itself would be completely transformed – the superlight world must be characterized by three temporal dimensions and one spatial dimension and described in the familiar language of field theory. It turns out that the existence of such ultralight observers does not lead to anything logically contradictory, moreover, it is quite possible that superlight objects actually exist.

“At the beginning of the 20th century, Albert Einstein completely rethought our perception of time and space. Three-dimensional space took on a fourth dimension – time and the hitherto separated concepts of time and space began to be accepted as one. From the Faculty of Physics and the Center for Quantum Technologies, University of Warsaw physicist Professor Andrzej Dragan explains that in the special theory of relativity formulated by Albert Einstein in 1905, time and space differ only by their sign in some equations. National University of Singapore named after him.

Einstein based his special theory of relativity on two assumptions: Galileo’s principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light. According to Andrzej Dragan, the first principle, which assumes that the laws of physics are the same in every inertial system and that all inertial observers are equal, is fundamental.

As a rule, this principle applies to observers moving relative to each other at speeds slower than the speed of light (s). However, Dragan argues that there is no fundamental reason why observers traveling at speeds higher than the speed of light according to the described physical systems should not be subject to this.

What if, at least in theory, we assume that the world can be observed from infrared reference frames? There is a chance that this will allow the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics to be incorporated into the special theory of relativity. This revolutionary hypothesis by Professor Andrzej Dragan and Professor Arthur Eckert of Oxford University was first presented two years ago in the paper “Quantum Principle of Relativity” published in 2009. New Journal of Physics.

There, they considered the simplified case of two families of observers in a space-time of two dimensions: one spatial and the other temporal. In their most recent publication, Relativity of Superluminal Observers in a 1+3 Spacetime, a group of 5 physicists goes further and presents the findings about a fully four-dimensional space-time. The authors start from the concept of space-time, which corresponds to our physical reality: three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. However, from the perspective of a superluminal observer, only one dimension of this world has a spatial character, the dimension in which particles can move.

“The other three dimensions are the time dimensions,” explains Professor Andrzej Dragan.

“From the point of view of such an observer, the particle ‘ages’ independently every three times. But from our point of view – the lightened breadwinners – it looks like a simultaneous movement in all directions of space, namely the propagation of a quantum-mechanical spherical wave associated with a particle,” he says. Professor Krzysztof Turzynski, co-authored article.

This corresponds to the principle formulated by Huygens in the 18th century, as Professor Andrzej Dragan explained, that every point a wave reaches becomes the source of a new global wave. This principle was initially applied only to light waves, but quantum mechanics has extended this principle to all other forms of matter.

As the authors of the publication prove, inclusion in the definition of superluminal observers requires the creation of a new definition of velocity and kinematics. – This new definition preserves Einstein’s assumption about the constancy of the speed of light in vacuum, even for superluminal observers – the paper’s authors prove it. “So our extended special relativity doesn’t seem like such an exaggerated idea,” adds Dragan.

How does the definition of the world we introduce ultralight observers change? After taking into account the superlight solutions, the world ceases to be deterministic, the particles begin to move – instead of one – along many orbits at the same time, according to the principle of quantum superposition.

“For a superluminous observer, the classical Newtonian point particle loses its meaning and field becomes the only quantity that can be used to describe the physical world,” says Andrzej Dragan.

“Until recently, it was believed that the underlying assumptions of quantum theory are fundamental and cannot be derived from anything more fundamental. In this study, the verification of quantum theory using the extended theory of relativity can naturally be generalized to 1+3 spacetime, and that such an extension has implications for the results suggested by quantum field theory. We have shown that it does.” write a post.

That is, all particles seem to have an extraordinary quantum! They are features in the extended special theory of relativity. Does it work the other way around? Can we detect particles that are normal to superluminal observers, that is, particles moving relative to us at superluminal velocities?

“It’s not that simple,” says Professor Krzysztof Turzynski.

“The simple experimental discovery of a new fundamental particle is a Nobel Prize-winning achievement and is possible in a large research group using the latest experimental methods. However, we do not support our results in the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking with the mass of the Higgs particle and other particles in the Standard Model, particularly in the early universe. We hope to apply it to better understand it.”

Andrzej Dragan adds that the main component of any spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism is the tachyon field. It seems that the superluminal phenomenon may play a key role in the Higgs mechanism.