Quantum field theory of interacting tachyons

Abstract

A quantum field theory of spin-0 particles traveling with speeds greater than that of light has been constructed. The theory constructed here is explicitly Lorentz-invariant; and the quanta of the field obey Bose statistics. Formalism developed for the free field has been extended to the case of interaction of these particles with nucleons. A new feature of theory is the occurrence of negative-energy particles; this is a necessary consequence of the relativistic invariance of the theory, since the distinction between positive and negative energies is not a relativistically invariant concept for such particles. The occurrence of these negative-energy particles does not, however, prevent the theory from being meaningful; the physical interpretation of the situation is provided by the postulate that any process involving negative-energy particles is to be identified with a physical process with only positive-energy particles traveling in the opposite direction, with the roles of emission and absorption interchanged. The scattering amplitudes are the same as in the usual theory with m² replaced by -m².