Constraints on equivalence principle violation from gamma ray bursts

Bartlett, Deaglan J.; Bergsdal, Dexter; Desmond, Harry; Ferreira, Pedro G.; Jasche, Jens

doi:10.1103/physrevd.104.084025

Cited by 8 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 88 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Since the redshift values are uncertain, as in [52], we draw N MC ¼ 10 4 redshifts per source from a two-sided Gaussian with upper and lower uncertainties equal to the uncertainties calculated in [58]. Doubling N MC yields identical results, indicating that the number of samples is adequate.…”

Section: A Forward Modeling the Time Delaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As demonstrated in [52], for the WEP violation case one cannot accurately describe the noise by a single Gaussian. Instead, we model these extra contributions, B ij , to the observed delay…”

Section: B Modeling the Noisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As in [52], the deliberately wide priors, PðθÞ, in Table I lead to difficulties in interpreting the Bayes ratio. To find the maximum likelihood and thus the BIC, we first optimize using the Nelder-Mead algorithm [63] with a simplex consisting of parameters drawn randomly from the prior.…”

Section: Likelihood Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, we address the issues highlighted when constraining E QG by constructing probabilistic source-by-source forward models of the time delays of 448 GRBs from the BATSE satellite [50,51] and marginalizing over empirical models describing astrophysical and observational contributions to the measured time delay. These techniques were developed in Bartlett et al [52] who, using the same sources as here, constrain WEP violation to Δγ < 2.1 × 10 −15 at 1σ confidence between photon energies of 25 keV and 325 keV. Second, we provide constraints on the photon mass that are independent of radio observations and are thus insensitive to potential systematics in modeling the propagation of photons at radio frequency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Constraints on quantum gravity and the photon mass from gamma ray bursts

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Lorentz invariance violation in quantum gravity (QG) models or a nonzero photon mass, m γ , would lead to an energy-dependent propagation speed for photons, such that photons of different energies from a distant source would arrive at different times, even if they were emitted simultaneously. By developing source-by-source, Monte Carlo-based forward models for such time delays from gamma ray bursts, and marginalizing over empirical noise models describing other contributions to the time delay, we derive constraints on m γ and the QG length scale, l QG , using spectral lag data from the BATSE satellite. We find m γ < 4.0 × 10 −5 h eV=c 2 and l QG < 5.3 × 10 −18 h GeV −1 at 95% confidence, and demonstrate that these constraints are robust to the choice of noise model. The QG constraint is among the tightest from studies which consider multiple gamma ray bursts and the constraint on m γ , although weaker than from using radio data, provides an independent constraint which is less sensitive to the effects of dispersion by electrons.

show abstract

Section: A Forward Modeling the Time Delaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Modeling the Noisementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Likelihood Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Constraints on quantum gravity and the photon mass from gamma ray bursts

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We aim to find the constraint on Δ𝛾. According to our understanding from various previous studies (Tingay & Kaplan 2016;Nusser 2016;Xing et al 2019;Bartlett et al 2021;Li et al 2021;Yang et al 2020;Tangmatitham & Nemiroff 2019), we can only consider the upper limit of Δ𝛾 value to mark a constraint which essentially indicates an upper limit of the violation of WEP. According to our calculation from Eqs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraining violations of the Weak Equivalence Principle Using CHIME FRBs

Sen,

Hashimoto,

Goto

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Einstein's General Relativity (GR) is the basis of modern astronomy and astrophysics. Testing the validity of basic assumptions of GR is important. In this work, we test a possible violation of the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP), i.e., there might be a time-lag between photons of different frequencies caused by the effect of gravitational fields if the speeds of photons are slightly different at different frequencies. We use Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) , which are astronomical transients with millisecond timescales detected in the radio frequency range. Being at cosmological distances, accumulated time delay of FRBs can be caused by the plasma in between an FRB source and an observer, and by gravitational fields in the path of the signal. We segregate the delay due to dispersion and gravitational field using the post-Newtonian formalism (PPN) parameter Δ𝛾, which defines the space-curvature due to gravity by a unit test mass. We did not detect any time-delay from FRBs but obtained tight constraints on the upper limit of Δ𝛾. For FRB20181117C with 𝑧 = 1.83 ± 0.28 and 𝜈 𝑜𝑏𝑠 = 676.5 MHz, the best possible constraint is obtained at log(Δ𝛾) = −21.58 +0.10 −0.12 and log(Δ𝛾/𝑟 E ) = −21.75 +0.10 −0.14 , respectively, where 𝑟 E is the energy ratio of two photons of the same FRB signal. This constraint is about one order of magnitude better than the previous constraint obtained with FRBs, and five orders tighter than any constraint obtained using other cosmological sources.

show abstract

Constraining violations of the weak equivalence principle Using CHIME FRBs

Sen

Hashimoto

Goto

et al. 2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Einstein’s General relativity (GR) is the basis of modern astronomy and astrophysics. Testing the validity of basic assumptions of GR is important. In this work, we test a possible violation of the weak equivalence principle (WEP), i.e. there might be a time lag between photons of different frequencies caused by the effect of gravitational fields if the speeds of photons are slightly different at different frequencies. We use Fast radio bursts (FRBs), which are astronomical transients with millisecond time-scales detected in the radio frequency range. Being at cosmological distances, accumulated time delay of FRBs can be caused by the plasma in between an FRB source and an observer, and by gravitational fields in the path of the signal. We segregate the delay due to dispersion and gravitational field using the post-Newtonian formalism (PPN) parameter Δγ, which defines the space curvature due to gravity by a unit test mass. We did not detect any time delay from FRBs but obtained tight constraints on the upper limit of Δγ. For FRB20181117C with z = 1.83 ± 0.28 and νobs = $676.5\, {\rm MHz}$, the best possible constraint is obtained at log(Δγ) = $-21.58 ^{+0.10}_{-0.12}$ and log(Δγ/rE) = $-21.75 ^{+0.10}_{-0.14}$, respectively, where rE is the energy ratio of two photons of the same FRB signal. This constraint is about one order of magnitude better than the previous constraint obtained with FRBs, and five orders tighter than any constraint obtained using other cosmological sources.

show abstract

Constraints on equivalence principle violation from gamma ray bursts

Cited by 8 publications

References 88 publications

Constraints on quantum gravity and the photon mass from gamma ray bursts

Constraints on quantum gravity and the photon mass from gamma ray bursts

Constraining violations of the Weak Equivalence Principle Using CHIME FRBs

Constraining violations of the weak equivalence principle Using CHIME FRBs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About