# SPACS Colloquium: Robert Ehrlich “Tales from the dark side: New evidence for tachyonic neutrinos”

March 21,2013 3pm
Art and Design Building Room 2003

Abstract: In several recent papers it was claimed that SN 1987A supports the claim of 4.0 eV and 21.4 eV neutrino mass eigenstates, and it was shown that such large masses could be made consistent with existing constraints including neutrino oscillation data and upper limits on the neutrino masses, provided that there also exist a pair of sterile neutrino mass states whose masses are nearly degenerate with them. In this 3 + 3 model, there is also a tachyonic mass doublet, with a proposed mass $latex m^2_3 = – 0.2 keV^2$. Here, independent evidence is presented for the existence of sterile neutrinos with 4.0 eV and 21.4 eV masses based on fits to the dark matter distributions in the Milky Way galaxy and in four clusters of galaxies. Not only are excellent quality fits obtained, but it is shown that the existence of such hot dark matter solves a number of vexing problems, including flat cores at the centers of galaxies, and the missing satellites problem. Nevertheless, given the highly controversial nature of the claim, it will require additional observations before it can be considered proven.