The sensational result that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light may be undone by nothing more than a simple mechanical error.
Scientists from the OPERA collaboration at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy have "identified two issues that could significantly affect the reported result," wrote OPERA spokesman Antonio Ereditato in an email.
The first issue is a faulty connection of the fiber-optic cable bringing the GPS signal to the experiment's master clock. The experiment's GPS may also have been providing the wrong timestamps during synchronization between events.
"These two issues can modify the neutrino time of flight in opposite directions," Ereditato wrote.
Back in September 2011, OPERA researchers found bunches of neutrinos arriving 60 nanoseconds earlier than should be possible if they were traveling at less-than-light speeds. The neutrinos traveled 450 miles from experiments at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.
The findings seemed to contradict Einstein's theory of relativity, which states that nothing can move faster than light. Many in the physics community kept a skeptical view of the findings, suggesting that some unknown source of error had perhaps entered the experiment.
The collaboration is now looking to perform a new measurement of the neutrino velocity as soon as the Large Hadron Collider begins operation in March.
Image: OPERA collaboration
