GLAST and Lorentz violation

TL;DR

This paper investigates potential Lorentz violations using gamma-ray burst data simulated for the GLAST telescope, proposing a maximum likelihood method to detect symmetry breaking with about 100 bursts.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation-based approach and a maximum likelihood method to test Lorentz violation using gamma-ray burst observations from GLAST.

Findings

Maximum likelihood method can detect Lorentz violation with ~100 bursts

Simulated data shows relation between photon flux and Lorentz violation detection sensitivity

Perturbed arrival times and energies model realistic observational uncertainties

Abstract

We study possible Lorentz violations by means of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) with special focus on the Large Array Telescope (LAT) of GLAST. We simulate bursts with gtobssim and introduce a Lorentz violating term in the arrival times of the photons. We further perturb these arrival times and energies with a Gaussian distribution corresponding to the time resp. energy resolution of GLAST. We then vary the photon flux in gtobssim in order to derive a relation between the photon number and the standard deviation of the Lorentz violating term. We conclude with the fact that our maximum likelihood method as first developed in [1] is able to make a statement whether Nature breaks the Lorentz symmetry if the number of bursts with known redshifts is of the order of 100.