Apparent faster than light propagation from light sterile neutrinos

Abstract

Recent data from the OPERA experiment seem to point to neutrinos propagating faster than light. One possible physics explanation for such a result is the existence of light sterile neutrinos which can propagate in a higher dimensional bulk and achieve apparent superluminal velocities when measured by an observer confined to the 4D brane of the standard model. Such a model has the advantage of easily being able to explain the non-observation of superluminal neutrinos from SN1987A. Here we discuss the phenomenological implications of such a model and show that it can provide an explanation for the observed faster than light propagation of neutrinos.