Experimental test of Non-Commutative Quantum Gravity by VIP-2 Lead

TL;DR

This paper reports an experimental test of non-commutative quantum gravity effects via violations of the Pauli Exclusion Principle, setting the tightest bounds to date on the non-commutative space-time scale using the VIP-2 Lead experiment.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental bounds on non-commutative space-time effects from atomic transition tests, constraining quantum gravity models.

Findings

Excluded non-commutative scales far above the Planck scale for certain components.

Set the most stringent bounds on non-commutative space-time from atomic experiments.

Motivates further underground X-ray measurements for quantum gravity research.

Abstract

Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP) violations induced by space-time non-commutativity, a class of universality for several models of Quantum Gravity, are investigated by the VIP-2 Lead experiment at the Gran Sasso underground National Laboratory of INFN. The VIP-2 Lead experimental bound on the non-commutative space-time scale $\Lambda$ excludes $\theta$-Poincar\'e far above the Planck scale for non vanishing ``electric-like" components of $\theta_{\mu \nu}$, and up to $6.9 \cdot 10^{-2}$ Planck scales if they are null. Therefore, this new bound represents the tightest one so far provided by atomic transitions tests. This result strongly motivates high sensitivity underground X-ray measurements as critical tests of Quantum Gravity and of the very microscopic space-time structure.