There appear to be some misunderstandings concerning superluminal motions or tachyons (here we mean them by generic hypothetical superluminal particles) in physics literature including textbooks. For example, a claim that superluminal motions violate special relativity, that tachyons have an imaginary rest mass, that tachyons would satisfy the usual energy-momentum relation, or that tachyons would violate causality. These purported misunderstandings are mainly due to applying incorrect Lorentz transformation (the usual one we see in textbooks that is actually meant for subluminal motions).
In my recent paper, I introduced the Lorentz transformation for superluminal motions and used it to clarify such misunderstandings. In the final section of the paper, I offered an intriguing possibility that tachyons may not actually be superluminal even if we observe them as superluminal. This assumes a hypothesis that there is another twin brother of our universe which has a different signature than that of our universe. I also wrote about this in the preceding blog article here.
I initially submitted the paper to American Journal of Physics and it was immediately rejected by an associate editor. According to her, the reason for rejection is that I am challenging well-established theory in my paper, so it is not appropriate for AJP. Huh? Anyone who reads the paper would see that I am not challenging the theory of relativity, rather I am embracing the theory of relativity by providing correct interpretations of superluminal motions. I have submitted the paper elsewhere and I hope they are more open-minded. It’s been about three weeks and my paper has not been rejected yet:).
