Searching Lorentz invariance violation from cosmic photon attenuation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Lorentz invariance violation could alter cosmic photon attenuation, proposing observational strategies with LHAASO to detect such effects using high-energy gamma-ray data, exemplified by GRB 221009A.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to identify Lorentz invariance violation through cosmic photon attenuation measurements with current gamma-ray observatories.

Findings

LHAASO is highly suitable for LIV detection at TeV-PeV energies.

The proposed strategy can distinguish LIV effects from standard physics.

Application to GRB 221009A demonstrates the method's potential.

Abstract

Lorentz invariance violation~(LIV) can change the threshold behavior predicted by special relativity and cause threshold anomalies which affect the propagation of cosmic photons. In this work, we focus on the threshold anomaly effect on cosmic photon attenuations by extragalactic background light~(EBL) and discuss how to identify LIV from observations of very high energy~(VHE) photons propagated from long distance in the universe. We point out that the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory~(LHAASO), one of the most sensitive gamma-ray detector arrays currently operating at TeV and PeV energies, is an ideal facility for performing such LIV searching. We apply the proposed strategy to discuss the newly observed gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A to demonstrate the predictive ability of our suggestions.