Phenomenology of Particle Production and Propagation in String-Motivated Canonical Noncommutative Spacetime

TL;DR

This paper proposes a phenomenological approach to detect effects of string-motivated noncommutative spacetime through modified particle dispersion relations, focusing on high-energy astrophysical phenomena and their potential to reveal new physics.

Contribution

It introduces a new framework for testing noncommutative spacetime effects via particle production and gamma-ray dispersion, emphasizing high-energy astrophysical observations.

Findings

Deformed dispersion relations can alter particle production thresholds.

Potential explanation for GZK cutoff violations in cosmic rays.

Implications for gamma-ray dispersion from distant sources.

Abstract

We outline a phenomenological programme for the search of effects induced by (string-motivated) canonical noncommutative spacetime. The tests we propose are based, in analogy with a corresponding programme developed over the last few years for the study of Lie-algebra noncommutative spacetimes, on the role of the noncommutativity parameters in the $E(p)$ dispersion relation. We focus on the role of deformed dispersion relations in particle-production collision processes, where the noncommutativity parameters would affect the threshold equation, and in the dispersion of gamma rays observed from distant astrophysical sources. We emphasize that the studies here proposed have the advantage of involving particles of relatively high energies, and may therefore be less sensitive to "contamination" (through IR/UV mixing) from the UV sector of the theory. We also explore the possibility that the relevant deformation of the dispersion relations could be responsible for the experimentally-observed violations of the GZK cutoff for cosmic rays and could have a role in the observation of hard photons from distant astrophysical sources.