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Robust limits on Lorentz violation from gamma-ray bursts |
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| Authors: | John Ellis NE Mavromatos DV Nanopoulos AS Sakharov EKG Sarkisyan |
| Institution: | aTheory Division, Physics Department, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland bDepartment of Physics, King’s College London, University of London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK cDepartment of Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA dAstroparticle Physics Group, Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), Mitchell Campus, Woodlands, TX 77381, USA eAcademy of Athens, Division of Natural Sciences, 28 Panepistimiou Avenue, Athens 10679, Greece fSwiss Institute of Technology, ETH-Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland gEP Division, Physics Department, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland hDepartment of Physics, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK |
| Abstract: | We constrain the possibility of a non-trivial refractive index in free space corresponding to an energy-dependent velocity of light: c(E)  c0(1 ? E/M), where M is a mass scale that might represent effect of quantum-gravitational space-time foam, using the arrival times of sharp features observed in the intensities of radiation with different energies from a large sample of gamma-ray bursters (GRBs) with known redshifts. We use wavelet techniques to identify genuine features, which we confirm in simulations with artificial added noise. Using the weighted averages of the time-lags calculated using correlated features in all the GRB light curves, we find a systematic tendency for more energetic photons to arrive earlier. However, there is a very strong correlation between the parameters characterizing an intrinsic time-lag at the source and a distance-dependent propagation effect. Moreover, the significance of the earlier arrival times is less evident for a subsample of more robust spectral structures. Allowing for intrinsic stochastic time-lags in these features, we establish a statistically robust lower limit: M > 0.9 × 1016 GeV on the scale of violation of Lorentz invariance. |
| Keywords: | Lorentz invariance Gamma ray burst Quantum gravity Wavelet transform |
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