Limits on quantum gravity effects from Swift short gamma-ray bursts

Abstract

The delay in the arrival times between high and low energy photons from cosmic sources can be used to test the violation of the Lorentz invariance (LIV), predicted by some quantum gravity theories, and to constrain its characteristic energy scale ${\mathrm{E}}_{\mathrm{QG}}$ that is of the order of the Planck energy. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and blazars are ideal for this purpose thanks to their broad spectral energy distribution and cosmological distances: at first order approximation, the constraints on ${\mathrm{E}}_{\mathrm{QG}}$ are proportional to the photon energy separation and the distance of the source. However, the LIV tiny contribution to the total time delay can be dominated by intrinsic delays related to the physics of the sources: long GRBs typically show a delay between high and low energy photons related to their spectral evolution (spectral lag). Short GRBs have null intrinsic spectral lags and are therefore an ideal tool to measure any LIV effect. We considered a sample of $15$ short GRBs with known redshift observed by Swift and we estimate a limit on ${\mathrm{E}}_{\mathrm{QG}}\gtrsim 1.5\times 10^{16}$ GeV. Our estimate represents an improvement with respect to the limit obtained with a larger (double) sample of long GRBs and is more robust than the estimates on single events because it accounts for the intrinsic delay in a statistical sense.

6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication on Astronomy and Astrophysics

References in corpus (13)

• The Hubble Diagram to Redshift >6 from 69 Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Probing quantum gravity using photons from a flare of the active galactic nucleus Markarian 501 observed by the MAGIC telescope
• Lorentz-violation-induced arrival delays of cosmological particles
• Search for Lorentz Invariance breaking with a likelihood fit of the PKS 2155-304 flare data taken on MJD 53944
• A complete sample of bright Swift short Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Short GRBs at the dawn of the gravitational wave era
• Astrophysics: A burst of new ideas
• Comparing the spectral lag of short and long gamma-ray bursts and its relation with the luminosity
• Correlations Between Lag, Luminosity, and Duration in Gamma-ray Burst Pulses
• GRB 140206A: the most distant polarized Gamma-Ray Burst
• Time-Resolved Spectroscopy of the 3 Brightest and Hardest Short Gamma-Ray Bursts Observed with the FGST Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor
• Study of time lags in HETE-2 Gamma-Ray Bursts with redshift: search for astrophysical effects and Quantum Gravity signature
• Gamma-ray burst polarization reduction induced by the Lorentz invariance violation

Cited by in corpus (5)

• First Combined Study on LIV from Observations of Energy-dependent Time Delays from Multiple-type Gamma-ray Sources -- Part I. Motivation, Method Description and Validation through Simulations of H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS Datasets
• Light Speed Variation with Brane/String-Inspired Space-Time Foam
• Space-time: Commutative or noncommutative ?
• Dispersive Property of the Quantum Vacuum and the Speed of Light
• Constraints on Hořava-Lifshitz gravity from GRB 170817A