| Article | |
| Report number | arXiv:1807.00189 ; KCL-PH-TH/2018-28 ; CERN-TH/2018-138 ; IFIC/17-62 ; CERN-TH-2018-138 |
| Title | Robust Constraint on Lorentz Violation Using Fermi-LAT Gamma-Ray Burst Data |
| Author(s) | Ellis, John (King's Coll. London ; CERN) ; Konoplich, Rostislav (New York U. (main) ; Manhattan Coll., Riverdale) ; Mavromatos, Nikolaos E. (King's Coll. London ; U. Valencia (main)) ; Nguyen, Linh (Manhattan Coll., Riverdale) ; Sakharov, Alexander S. (New York U. (main) ; Manhattan Coll., Riverdale ; CERN) ; Sarkisyan-Grinbaum, Edward K. (CERN ; Texas U., Arlington (main)) |
| Publication | 2019-04-16 |
| Imprint | 2018-06-30 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Note | 40 pages, 15 figures, version accepted for publication in PRD, the bibliography improved |
| In: | Phys. Rev. D 99 (2019) 083009 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevD.99.083009 |
| Subject category | hep-ph ; Particle Physics - Phenomenology ; gr-qc ; General Relativity and Cosmology ; astro-ph.HE ; Astrophysics and Astronomy |
| Abstract | 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 statistical estimators based on the irregularity, kurtosis and skewness of bursts that are relatively bright in the 100 MeV to multi-GeV energy band to constrain possible dispersion effects during propagation. We find that the energy scale characterizing a linear energy dependence of the refractive index should exceed a few $\times 10^{17}$ GeV, and we estimate the sensitivity attainable with additional future sources to be detected by Fermi-LAT. |
| Copyright/License | preprint: (License: arXiv nonexclusive-distrib 1.0) Publication: © 2019-2025 authors |
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