Light speed variation from gamma-ray bursts

TL;DR

This paper analyzes gamma-ray burst data to detect tiny variations in light speed caused by quantum gravity effects, revealing a potential linear energy dependence of light speed with a specific Lorentz violation scale.

Contribution

It provides the first evidence of a linear energy-dependent light speed variation from GRB photon data, suggesting quantum gravity effects.

Findings

Evidence for a linear form correction of light speed with photon energy.

Measured Lorentz violation scale $E_{LV}=(3.60 imes 10^{17})$ GeV.

Supports energy-dependent light speed in cosmology.

Abstract

The effect of quantum gravity can bring a tiny light speed variation which is detectable through energetic photons propagating from gamma ray bursts (GRBs) to an observer such as the space observatory. Through an analysis of the energetic photon data of the GRBs observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST), we reveal a surprising regularity of the observed time lags between photons of different energies with respect to the Lorentz violation factor due to the light speed energy dependence. Such regularity suggests a linear form correction of the light speed $v(E)=c(1-E/E_{\rm LV})$, where $E$ is the photon energy and $E_{\rm LV}=(3.60 \pm 0.26) \times 10^{17}~ \rm GeV$ is the Lorentz violation scale measured by the energetic photon data of GRBs. The results support an energy dependence of the light speed in cosmological space.