Changes in extensive air showers from isotropic Lorentz violation in the photon sector

Abstract

We consider a theory with isotropic nonbirefringent Lorentz violation in the photon sector and explore the effects on the development of the electromagnetic component of extensive air showers in the Earth atmosphere. Specifically, we consider the case of a "fast" photon with a phase velocity larger than the maximum attainable velocity of a massive Dirac fermion (this case corresponds to a negative Lorentz-violating parameter $\kappa$ in the action). Shower photons with above-threshold energies decay promptly into electron-positron pairs, instead of decaying by the conventional production of electron-positron pairs in the background fields of atomic nuclei. This rapid production of charged leptons accelerates the shower development, decreasing the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum ($X_{\text{max}}$) by an amount which could be measured by cosmic-ray observatories. Precise measurements of $X_{\text{max}}$ could then improve existing limits on the negative Lorentz-violating parameter $\kappa$ by several orders of magnitude.

14 pages, v4: published version

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Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Improved bound on isotropic Lorentz violation in the photon sector from extensive air showers
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• Predictions of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Propagation in the Context of Homogeneously Modified Special Relativity
• A new bound on Lorentz violation based on the absence of vacuum Cherenkov radiation in ultra-high energy air showers
• Lorentz violation parameters and noncommutative scale
• Are inertial vacua equivalent in Lorentz-violating theories? Does it matter?
• $F_{\gamma }$: a new observable for photon-hadron discrimination in hybrid air shower events