Lorentz Violation and Ultrahigh-Energy Photons

Abstract

The propagation of photons, electrons and positrons at ultra-high energies above 10^{19} eV can be changed considerably if the dispersion relations of these particles are modified by terms suppressed by powers of the Planck scale. We recently pointed out that the current non-observation of photons in the ultra-high energy cosmic ray flux at such energies can put strong constraints on such modified dispersion relations. In the present work we generalize these constraints to all three Lorentz invariance breaking parameters that can occur in the dispersion relations for photons, electrons and positrons at first and second order suppression with the Planck scale. We also show how the excluded regions in these three-dimensional parameter ranges would be extended if ultra-high energy photons were detected in the future.

9 revtex pages, 11 figures; published version; added comment on models beyond effective field theory

References in corpus (5)

• Derivation of a Vacuum Refractive Index in a Stringy Space-Time Foam Model
• Lorentz Violation for Photons and Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Search for ultra-high energy photons using air showers
• New constraints on Planck-scale Lorentz Violation in QED from the Crab Nebula
• Have we tested Lorentz invariance enough?

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Time Delays of Strings in D-particle Backgrounds and Vacuum Refractive Indices
• Probing a Possible Vacuum Refractive Index with Gamma-Ray Telescopes
• Planck-scale Lorentz violation constrained by Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays
• Testing Lorentz Invariance Violation with WMAP Five Year Data
• Bulk photons in Asymmetrically Warped Space-times and Non-trivial Vacuum Refractive Index
• Lorentz violation effects in asymmetric two brane models: a nonperturbative analysis