Title: Constraining Anisotropic Lorentz Violation via the Spectral-lag Transition of GRB 160625B

Abstract

Violations of Lorentz invariance can lead to an energy-dependent vacuum dispersion of light, which results in arrival-time differences of photons with different energies arising from a given transient source. Here, direction-dependent dispersion constraints are obtained on nonbirefringent Lorentz-violating effects using the observed spectral lags of the gamma-ray burst GRB 160625B. This burst has unusually large high-energy photon statistics, so we can obtain constraints from the true spectral time lags of bunches of high-energy photons rather than from the rough time lag of a single highest-energy photon. Also, GRB 160625B is the only burst to date having a well-defined transition from positive lags to negative lags, providing a unique opportunity to distinguish Lorentz-violating effects from any source-intrinsic time lag in the emission of photons of different energy bands. Our results place comparatively robust two-sided constraints on a variety of isotropic and anisotropic coefficients for Lorentz violation, including the first bounds on Lorentz-violating effects from operators of mass dimension 10 in the photon sector.

Authors:

Wei, Jun-Jie  ^[1];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Wei, Jun-Jie"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-0162-2488"

Wu, Xue-Feng  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Wu, Xue-Feng"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-6299-1263"

Zhang, Bin-Bin  ^[3];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Zhang, Bin-Bin"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-4111-5958"

Shao, Lang  ^[4];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Shao, Lang"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-8876-2357"

Mészáros, Peter  ^[5];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Mészáros, Peter"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-4132-1746"

Kostelecký, V. Alan ^[6]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Nanjing (China). Purple Mountain Observatory; Guangxi Key Lab. for Relativistic Astrophysics, Nanning (China)
2. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Nanjing (China). Purple Mountain Observatory; Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). School of Astronomy and Space Sciences; Nanjing Univ.-Purple Mountain Observatory, Nanjing (China). Joint Center for Particle, Nuclear Physics and Cosmology
3. Inst. de Astrofísica de Andalucá (IAA-CSIC), Granada (Spain); Scientist Support LLC, Madison, AL (United States)
4. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Nanjing (China). Purple Mountain Observatory; Hebei Normal Univ., Shijiazhuang (China). Dept. of Space Sciences and Astronomy
5. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics; Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept. of Physics; Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Inst. for Gravitation and the Cosmos, Center for Particle and Gravitational Astrophysics
6. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States). Physics Dept.

Publication Date:

Tue Jun 20 00:00:00 EDT 2017

Research Org.:

Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC)

OSTI Identifier:

1537188

Grant/Contract Number:  

SC0010120

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

The Astrophysical Journal (Online)

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal (Online); Journal Volume: 842; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 1538-4357

Publisher:

Institute of Physics (IOP)

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; astronomy & astrophysics; astroparticle physics; gamma-ray burst; gravitation