Tachyons: Faster than Light Particles

S. Sahoo, M. Kumar and M. Goswami

National Institute of Technology

A tachyon is a hypothetical particle that always moves with a velocity greater than the velocity of light in vacuum, c = 3x10^8m/s. It has several peculiar properties such as velocity greater than that of light and can be arbitrarily large even velocity v = infinite is allowed, energy of a tachyon decreases with increasing velocity, its energy can be negative, even though it has spin zero it is a fermion. Tachyon particles are appeared theoretically in a variety of theories but there is no experimental evidence for the existence of tachyon particles yet. However, the study of its very reason of non-existence can be a useful tool to solve the mysteries of the universe.