Photon gravitational defection in Lorentz violating scenarios

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Lorentz symmetry violation affects photon gravitational bending using a semiclassical approach with CFJ electrodynamics, finding deviations from Einstein's predictions and constraining Lorentz violation.

Contribution

It introduces a method to compute photon gravitational deflection in Lorentz-violating scenarios using CFJ electrodynamics and compares predictions with experiments to set bounds.

Findings

Deviations from Einstein's gravitational bending angle are predicted.

No evidence of Lorentz symmetry breaking is observed within experimental bounds.

Constraints on the background vector field components are established.

Abstract

The effect of Lorentz symmetry violation in the phenomenon of photon gravitational bending, is investigated. Using a semiclassical approach, where the photon is described by the Carrol-Field-Jackiw (CFJ) electrodynamics which is responsible for implementing the Lorentz symmetry violation, the gravitational deflection angle related to the CFJ photon is computed. As expected, this bending angle experiences a deviation from the usual Einstein result and the latter is recovered in the appropriate limit. A comparison between the theoretical prediction and the experimental results allows to conclude that no trace of Lorentz symmetry breaking is found provided the components of the background vector field are $\lesssim 10^{-8}$ eV.