Shining X-rays on asymptotically safe quantum gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores how X-ray reflection spectroscopy can be used to test asymptotically safe quantum gravity by analyzing black hole data, providing a new observational approach to constrain the theory.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of X-ray reflection spectroscopy to constrain parameters of asymptotically safe quantum gravity using astrophysical data.

Findings

X-ray reflection spectroscopy can place bounds on the fixed-point parameter γ.

Constraints from X-ray data complement black hole imaging results.

The study shows the feasibility of testing quantum gravity theories with astrophysical observations.

Abstract

Asymptotically safe quantum gravity is a promising candidate scenario to provide a UV extension for the effective quantum field theory of Einstein's gravity. The theory has its foundations on the very successful framework of quantum field theory, which has been extensively tested for electromagnetic and nuclear interactions. However, observational tests of asymptotically safe quantum gravity are more challenging. Recently, a rotating black hole metric inspired by asymptotically safe quantum gravity has been proposed, and this opens the possibility of astrophysical tests of the theory. In the present paper, we show the capabilities of X-ray reflection spectroscopy to constrain the inverse dimensionless fixed-point value $\gamma$ from the analysis of a Suzaku observation of the X-ray binary GRS 1915+105. We compare these constraints with those obtained from black hole imaging.