Planck scale still safe from stellar images

Abstract

The recent paper of Lieu and Hillman [1] that a possible, (birefringence like) phase difference ambiguity coming from Planck effects would alter stellar images of distant sources is questioned. Instead for {\em division of wavefront} interference and diffraction phenomena, initial (lateral) coherence is developed simply by propagation of rays (cf. van Cittert-Zernike theorem). This case is strongly immune to quantum gravity influences that could tend to reduce phase coherence. The phase ambiguity, if actually present, could reduce any underlying polarization of the light rays.

final version for CQG

References in corpus (6)

• Signals for Lorentz Violation in Electrodynamics
• Cosmological Constraints on Lorentz Violation in Electrodynamics
• An interferometric gravitational wave detector as a quantum-gravity apparatus
• Gravity-wave interferometers as probes of a low-energy effective quantum gravity
• Measuring the foaminess of space-time with gravity-wave interferometers
• The phase coherence of light from extragalactic sources - direct evidence against first order Planck scale fluctuations in time and space

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Modern tests of Lorentz invariance
• Quantum Spacetime Phenomenology
• The Search for Quantum Gravity Signals
• Probing spacetime foam with extragalactic sources
• Probing Planck-scale Physics with Extragalactic Sources?
• Discreteness and the transmission of light from distant sources
• Operational definition of (brane induced) space-time and constraints on the fundamental parameters
• Time Uncertainty in Quantum Gravitational Systems
• Field propagation in a stochastic background space: The rate of light incoherence in stellar interferometry
• Light incoherence due to quantum-gravitational fluctuations of the background space
• A limit on Planck-scale froth with ESPRESSO
• Photons with sub-Planckian Energy Cannot Efficiently Probe Space-Time Foam