Remarks on atmospheric effect of D-foam in light of muon puzzle

Abstract

In our recent paper~[1], we used a stringy model for quantum space-time foam to suggest that the so-induced subluminal Lorentz violation~(LV) for photons would not lead to experimentally unacceptable changes in the developments of particle showers initiated by cosmic $\gamma$-rays in the Earth's atmosphere, in contrast to other approaches to LV. The result indicated, nonetheless, at the same time that the foam can mildly modify the electromagnetic cascades under certain conditions, by suppressing pair creation on nuclei by primary photons. In this addendum, we consider how this modification affects the detection of extensive air shower~(EAS) initiated by an ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray particle~(viz., a primary hadron), like proton with $E\sim 10^{19}\text{eV}$, given that secondary photon subshowers following ${\pi }^0$ decays could be similarly influenced. We argue that fewer electrons would reach the detector and hence the energy of the primary particle may be underestimated due to foam effects, enhancing in such a way the muon content in EASs. This opens up the possibility of interpreting the alleged ``excess'' of muons, as reported by Auger and Telescope Array collaborations recently and many other experiments on high-energy cosmic rays, with a quantum-gravitational effect. Future observations are anticipated to confirm whether this anomaly really exists.

arXiv comment5 latex pages, no figure, final version for publication. Addendum to arXiv:2509.00552 to include a note on how modified $\gamma$-air reaction from a brane-inspired gravity foam model can affect CR energy reconstruction leading eventually to a novel explanation of muon puzzle

References in corpus (34)

• Potential Sensitivity of Gamma-Ray Burster Observations to Wave Dispersion in Vacuo
• High-Energy Tests of Lorentz Invariance
• The Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory
• Ultraviolet modifications of dispersion relations in effective field theory
• Testing Hadronic Interactions at Ultrahigh Energies with Air Showers Measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A Multi-Component Measurement of the Cosmic Ray Composition Between 10^{17} eV and 10^{18} eV
• Derivation of a Vacuum Refractive Index in a Stringy Space-Time Foam Model
• Quantum-Gravitational Diffusion and Stochastic Fluctuations in the Velocity of Light
• Light speed variation from gamma-ray bursts
• In-vacuo-dispersion features for GRB neutrinos and photons
• Study of muons from ultra-high energy cosmic ray air showers measured with the Telescope Array experiment
• Space-time quantum solves three experimental paradoxes
• Synchrotron Radiation and Quantum Gravity
• Muon content of ultra-high-energy air showers: Yakutsk data versus simulations
• Probing the evolution of the EAS muon content in the atmosphere with KASCADE-Grande
• Constraints on violation of Lorentz invariance from atmospheric showers initiated by multi-TeV photons
• No muon excess in extensive air showers at 100-500 PeV primary energy: EAS-MSU results
• Light speed variation from gamma ray bursts: criteria for low energy photons
• Liouville Decoherence in a Model of Flavour Oscillations in the presence of Dark Energy
• Light Speed Variation in a String Theory Model for Space-Time Foam
• Light speed variation from active galactic nuclei
• Lorentz Invariance Violation and the QED Formation Length
• Improved bound on isotropic Lorentz violation in the photon sector from extensive air showers
• Energy-dependent intrinsic time delay of gamma-ray bursts on testing Lorentz invariance violation
• Muon deficit in air shower simulations estimated from AGASA muon measurements
• Atmospheric muons measured with the KM3NeT detectors in comparison with updated numeric predictions
• Lorentz Invariance Violation from Gamma-Ray Bursts
• A new bound on Lorentz violation based on the absence of vacuum Cherenkov radiation in ultra-high energy air showers
• Lorentz invariance violation as an explanation of muon excess in Auger data
• Hypothetical Lorentz invariance violation and the muon content of extensive air showers
• Carpet-3 300 TeV Photon Event as an Evidence for Lorentz Violation
• Muon lateral distribution function of extensive air showers: results of the Sydney University Giant Air-shower Recorder versus modern Monte-Carlo simulations
• Probes for String-Inspired Foam, Lorentz, and CPT Violations in Astrophysics
• Shower formation in the presence of a string-inspired foam in space-time