CPT-Violating, Massive Photons and Cherenkov Radiation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new covariant quantization method for CPT-violating, massive photons, enabling calculation of vacuum Cherenkov radiation rates, which are largely independent of the photon mass and not observable at high energies.

Contribution

It proposes a consistent quantization framework for CPT-violating photons by adding a small mass term, enabling meaningful calculations of Cherenkov radiation rates.

Findings

Cherenkov radiation rates are largely independent of photon mass.

The radiation rate scales with the square of the CPT-violating parameter.

Rates are not observable at ultra high energies.

Abstract

CPT-Violating photons are well-known to have problems with energy positivity in certain cases and therefore have not been convincingly quantized to date. We find that by adding a small mass term, consistent with experimental bounds, the theory can be regulated and allows for a consistent covariant quantization procedure. This new framework is applied to a consistent quantum calculation of vacuum Cherenkov radiation rates. These rates turn out to be largely independent of the mass of the photon regulator used. In the physical regime, accessible by ultra high energy cosmic rays, the behavior of the rate is proportional to the square of the CPT-violating parameter and is not realistically observable.