Re: Mossbauer effect and retarded interactions

Igor Khavkine wrote:
>>Another set of experiments in which superluminal effects are observed
>>(at least, a few respected experimentalists make this claim:
>>Nimtz, Ranfagni, Chiao,...) are "photon tunneling" experiments.
>
>
> Rather, in these experiments, light pulses are sent through materials
> with unusual dielectric properties and positive amplitication. These
> effects conspire to reshape the pulse and make the group velocity
> appear superluminal. Or at least so say respected experimentalists
> (Nature 406, 277 - 279 (20 July 2000); doi:10.1038/35018520). Nothing
> to see here folks, move along...

You are talking about
L. J. WANG, A. KUZMICH & A. DOGARIU
Gain-assisted superluminal light propagation,
Nature 406, 277 - 279 (20 July 2000)

In this work, light passed through cesium vapors.
There are other experiments in which superluminal effects are
observed for light/microwaves
propagation in vacuum or air. The experiments
have been done by Nimtz, Giakos & Ishii, Mugnai & Ranfagni, and many
others. There are dosens of references. Check, for example,

A. Ranfagni, R. Ruggeri, A. Agresti, C. Ranfagni, P. Sandri,
"Anomalous pulse delay in microwave propagation: A stochastic
interpretation", Phys. Rev. E 66 (2002), 036111

This issue is far from satisfactory resolution within
traditional theory.


>>Luckily, there is another theory that generalizes and corrects
>>STR. It is Relativistic Quantum Dynamics published in
>>http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0504062 .
>
>
> "Published" is a very strong word for something that appears only on
> the arXiv.

You can read a peer-reviewed version in
E.V. Stefanovich "Is Minkowski space-time compatible with quantum
mechanics?" Found. Phys. 32 (2002), 673.


>>Thus, superluminality of the "photon tunneling" and the Mossbauer effect
>>would confirm the validity of RQD.
>
>
> Far from it. Even if the first part of the "big if" clause turns out to
> be true, it would falsify special relativity, but will say nothing of
> which theory should supercede it.

You may be right. One effect - even such a dramatic effect as
superluminal propagation of interactions - is not enough to confirm the
validity of entire theory. I should have rather pointed out that
superluminal effects do not disagree with RQD. In fact, they are
predicted by RQD.

Eugene.

.