Charleston: Gamma-Ray Bursts Faster Than the Speed of Light?

Find out the latest thinking about our universe.
Post Reply
User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

Charleston: Gamma-Ray Bursts Faster Than the Speed of Light?

Post by bystander » Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:34 pm

Faster than the Speed of Light: New Research Looks at Gamma-Ray Bursts
College of Charleston, South Carolina | 2019 Sep 25
Astrophysicists Jon Hakkila of the College of Charleston and Robert Nemiroff of the Michigan Technological University have published research indicating that blasts that create gamma-ray bursts may actually exceed the speed of light in surrounding gas clouds, but do so without violating Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Hakkila and Nemiroff propose that such superluminal jets could create the time-reversibility seen in gamma-ray burst light curves. These proposed jets, however, do not violate Einstein’s theory of relativity because they only move faster than light does through the jet medium, not faster than light through a vacuum.

Hakkila says that a good way to visualize this superluminal motion is to imagine someone on one side of a pond skipping a stone across the water in your direction. The frequently-hopping stone moves through the air between hops faster than the waves it generates move through water. Hakkila says you would see waves created by each skip of the approaching stone in reverse order, with waves from the most recent skip arriving first and those from the initial skip arriving last. ...

Time-Reversed Gamma-Ray Burst Light-Curve Characteristics as Transitions
between Subluminal and Superluminal Motion
~ Jon Hakkila, Robert Nemiroff
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

Post Reply