Tachyonic Neutrinos: From the Cosmic Rays to Extragalactic Supernovae

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Report of the Referee

Manuscript Ref.: Symmetry-2554547

Title: "Tachyonic neutrinos: from the cosmic rays to extragalactic supernovae"

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The author proposes to update evidence for tachyonic electron neutrinos and the 3 + 3 model. It is claimed there is one possible conclusive test about this issue. The topic is interesting and debatable. In principle, it has been  shown in Ref. [10] that non-observation of the +1/2 helicity state of the neutrino and the -1/2 helicity state of the antineutrino could be a direct consequence of the “tachyoneity” of neutrinos at the free level. This conclusion is obtained from a Lorentz covariant quantization of the spin-1/2 fermion field assuming the space-like energy-momentum dispersion relation.  Therefore, a serious experimental analysis focusing on the possibility of tachyonic neutrinos is important and desirable.

 

The paper is relatively well presented and the references are adequate. The topic is hot and of interest in the community. However, there are many typos in the text. Careful proofreading is needed.

For the reasons presented above the paper is relatively clear and well argued. It is suitable in my view for the Symmetry journal.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

The reviewer simply suggests editing to eliminate minor editing of English, which I certainly will do.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting sequel to the author's review published in Symmetry 14 (2022)1198. Minor formal flaws should be fixed. E.g. the initial sentence (line 2) should read v>c and m^2 < 0. It is unusual to have citations after the full stop (or comma) concluding (part of) a sentence; I recommend to move the references before the full stop/comma. A spell-check would be useful. 

There are minior spelling issues which should be fixed using an automatic spellchecker. 

Author Response

I apologize for the English errors which I will correct.

Reviewer 3 Report

 Report on manuscript symmetry-2554547

“Tachyonic neutrinos: from the cosmic rays to extragalactic supernovae”

This manuscript presents an interesting study about neutrinos and the 3 + 3 model, and present a test about it. The paper is interesting and in a good shape already, and therefore can be published. I would like that the authors address the following issues:

-        The introduction can be extended to better cover the background and the motivation of the study.

-        Can you please elaborate on the conclusion that the four features in figure one are supporting the tachyonic nature of the electron neutrino effective mass.  

-        Figure 1: what are the corresponding values of the first and second knees. I believe the plot in the reference doesn’t specify these values? How do they compare to values from other experiments in this energy range like KASCADE and IceTop?

-        I think the citations will require some attention; i.e. citation [1], [2], and [3] can better fit at the end of the sentence. [4] and [5] at the end of the previous sentence.

Punctuation symbols are missing after most equations, and at different locations in throughout the paper.

 

Author Response

Minor changes have been made to the introduction as requested.  I have now elaborated on the conclusion that the four features in figure one are supporting the tachyonic nature of the electron neutrino effective mass & do now explicitly compare the observed & predicted energies at which the features occur.  Fig. 1 is a particularly clean spectrum, so I'd rather not muddy the water by bringing in other experiments, which obviously will have slightly different values for the knees & ankle.