0000000000511313
AUTHOR
Alexander S. Sakharov
Synchrotron Radiation from the Crab Nebula Discriminates between Models of Space-Time Foam
It has been argued by Jacobson, Liberati and Mattingly that synchrotron radiation from the Crab Nebula imposes a stringent constraint on any modification of the dispersion relations of the electron that might be induced by quantum gravity. We supplement their analysis by deriving the spectrum of synchrotron radiation from the coupling of an electrically-charged particle to an external magnetic fields in the presence of quantum-gravity effects of the general form $(E/M_{QG})^\alpha$. We find that the synchrotron constraint from the Crab Nebula practically excludes $\alpha \lsim 1.74$ for $M_{QG} \sim m_P = 1.2 \times 10^{19}$ GeV. On the other hand, this analysis does not constrain any modif…
Limits on neutrino Lorentz violation from multimessenger observations of TXS 0506+056
The observation by the IceCube Collaboration of a high-energy ($E \gtrsim 200$ TeV) neutrino from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 and the coincident observations of enhanced $\gamma$-ray emissions from the same object by MAGIC and other experiments can be used to set stringent constraints on Lorentz violation in the propagation of neutrinos that is linear in the neutrino energy: $\Delta v = - E/M_1$, where $\Delta v$ is the deviation from the velocity of light, and $M_1$ is an unknown high energy scale to be constrained by experiment. Allowing for a difference in neutrino and photon propagation times of $\sim 10$ days, we find that $M_1 \gtrsim 3 \times 10^{16}$ GeV. This improves …
Robust constraint on Lorentz violation using Fermi-LAT gamma-ray burst data
Models of quantum gravity suggest that the vacuum should be regarded as a medium with quantum structure that may have non-trivial effects on photon propagation, including the violation of Lorentz invariance. Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) observations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are sensitive probes of Lorentz invariance, via studies of energy-dependent timing shifts in their rapidly-varying photon emissions. In this paper we analyze the Fermi-LAT measurements of high-energy gamma rays from GRBs with known redshifts, allowing for the possibility of energy-dependent variations in emission times at the sources as well as a possible non-trivial refractive index in vacuo for photons. We use st…
Search for lepton-flavor-violating decays of the Z boson into a τ lepton and a light lepton with the ATLAS detector
Direct searches for lepton flavor violation in decays of the Z boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are presented. Decays of the Z boson into an electron or muon and a hadronically decaying r l ...
Search for lepton-flavor violation in different-flavor, high-mass final states in pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
A search is performed for a heavy particle decaying into different-flavor, dilepton pairs (e mu, e tau or mu tau), using 36.1 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at root s = 13 TeV collected in ...
Space-Time Foam may Violate the Principle of Equivalence
The interactions of different particle species with the foamy space-time fluctuations expected in quantum gravity theories may not be universal, in which case different types of energetic particles may violate Lorentz invariance by varying amounts, violating the equivalence principle. We illustrate this possibility in two different models of space-time foam based on D-particle fluctuations in either flat Minkowski space or a stack of intersecting D-branes. Both models suggest that Lorentz invariance could be violated for energetic particles that do not carry conserved charges, such as photons, whereas charged particles such electrons would propagate in a Lorentz-inavariant way. The D-brane …