Massive photons and Lorentz violation

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive framework for massive photons with Lorentz violation, deriving exact dispersion relations and propagators, and discusses their implications for quantum field theory and infrared divergence regularization.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Stueckelberg Lagrangian incorporating all quadratic Lorentz-violating photon operators, providing exact solutions and methods for perturbative expansions.

Findings

Exact dispersion relation and propagator for Lorentz-violating massive photons

Framework for including Lorentz violation in quantum field theory calculations

Applications to infrared divergence regularization and vector boson propagation

Abstract

All quadratic translation- and gauge-invariant photon operators for Lorentz breakdown are included into the Stueckelberg Lagrangian for massive photons in a generalized \xi-gauge. The corresponding dispersion relation and tree-level propagator are determined exactly, and some leading-order results are derived. The question of how to include such Lorentz-violating effects into a perturbative quantum-field expansion is addressed. Applications of these results within Lorentz-breaking quantum field theories include the regularization of infrared divergences as well as the free propagation of massive vector bosons.