New test of weak equivalence principle using polarized light from astrophysical events

Abstract

Einstein's weak equivalence principle (WEP) states that any freely falling, uncharged test particle follows the same identical trajectory independent of its internal structure and composition. Since the polarization of a photon is considered to be part of its internal structure, we propose that polarized photons from astrophysical transients, such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and fast radio bursts (FRBs), can be used to constrain the accuracy of the WEP through the Shapiro time delay effect. Assuming that the arrival time delays of photons with different polarizations are mainly attributed to the gravitational potential of the Laniakea supercluster of galaxies, we show that a strict upper limit on the differences of the parametrized post-Newtonian parameter $\gamma$ value for the polarized optical emission of GRB 120308A is $\Delta \gamma <1.2\times 10^{-10}$, for the polarized gamma-ray emission of GRB 100826A is $\Delta \gamma <1.2\times 10^{-10}$, and for the polarized radio emission of FRB 150807 is $\Delta \gamma <2.2\times 10^{-16}$. These are the first direct verifications of the WEP for multiband photons with different polarizations. In particular, the result from FRB 150807 provides the most stringent limit to date on a deviation from the WEP, improving by one order of magnitude the previous best result based on Crab pulsar photons with different energies.

7 pages, 1 table. Updated to match the published version

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Cited by in corpus (15)

• GW170817 Falsifies Dark Matter Emulators
• The Physics of Fast Radio Bursts
• Multimessenger tests of the weak equivalence principle from GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterparts
• Limits on the Weak Equivalence Principle and Photon Mass with FRB 121102 Sub-pulses
• Shortcomings of Shapiro delay-based tests of the equivalence principle on cosmological scales
• Galactic Shapiro Delay to the Crab Pulsar and limit on Einstein's Equivalence Principle Violation
• Constraints on differential Shapiro delay between neutrinos and photons from IceCube-170922A
• Precision Test of the Weak Equivalence Principle from Gamma-Ray Burst Polarization
• Cosmic Transients, Einstein's Equivalence Principle and Dark Matter Halos
• Consistent equivalence principle tests with fast radio bursts
• Astrometric test of the weak equivalence principle
• Constraining Einstein's Equivalence Principle With Multi-Wavelength Observations of Polarized Blazars
• Constraining Einstein's Equivalence Principle With Multi-Wavelength Polarized astrophysical Sources
• Unveiling the distribution and redshift dependence of host galaxy dispersion measures using localized fast radio bursts
• Testing Weak Equivalence Principle with IceCube Event and Blazar