Constraints on the photon charge based on observations of extragalactic sources

Abstract

Using modern high-resolution observations of extragalactic compact radio sources we obtain an estimate of the upper bound on a photon electric charge at the level $e_{\gamma }\lesssim 3\cdot 10^{-33}$ of elementary charge (assuming the photon charge to be energy independent). This is three orders of magnitude better than the limit obtained with radio pulsar timing. Also we set a limit on a photon charge in the gamma-ray band (energies about 0.1 MeV). In future the estimate made for extragalactic sources can be significantly improved.

12 pages, no figures, accepted to Astronomy Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Origin of Galactic and Extragalactic Magnetic Fields
• XMM-Newton observations of the Perseus Cluster I: The temperature and surface brightness structure
• Pearson-Readhead Survey Sources II: The Longterm Centimeter-band Total Flux and Linear Polarization Properties of a Complete Radio Sample

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• Dark energy, non-minimal couplings and the origin of cosmic magnetic fields
• Radiatively Induced Lorentz and Gauge Symmetry Violation in Electrodynamics with Varying alpha
• Photon structure studied at an Electron Ion Collider
• Bound on the Photon Charge from the Phase Coherence of Extragalactic Radiation
• Astrophysical Bounds on the Photon Charge and Magnetic Moment
• Astrophysics in 2005