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A Planck-scale limit on spacetime fuzziness and stochastic Lorentz invariance violation

Nature Physics volume 11, pages 344–346 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Wheeler’s ‘spacetime-foam’1 picture of quantum gravity (QG) suggests spacetime fuzziness (fluctuations leading to non-deterministic effects) at distances comparable to the Planck length, LPl ≈ 1.62 × 10−33 cm, the inverse (in natural units) of the Planck energy, EPl ≈ 1.22 × 1019 GeV. The resulting non-deterministic motion of photons on the Planck scale is expected to produce energy-dependent stochastic fluctuations in their speed. Such a stochastic deviation from the well-measured speed of light at low photon energies, c, should be contrasted with the possibility of an energy-dependent systematic, deterministic deviation. Such a systematic deviation, on which observations by the Fermi satellite set Planck-scale limits for linear energy dependence2, is more easily searched for than stochastic deviations. Here, for the first time, we place Planck-scale limits on the more generic spacetime-foam prediction of energy-dependent fuzziness in the speed of photons. Using high-energy observations from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) of gamma-ray burst GRB090510, we test a model in which photon speeds are distributed normally around c with a standard deviation proportional to the photon energy. We constrain the model’s characteristic energy scale beyond the Planck scale at >2.8EPl(>1.6EPl), at 95% (99%) confidence. Our results set a benchmark constraint to be reckoned with by any QG model that features spacetime quantization.

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Figure 1: Light curves of GRB090510.
Figure 2: Construction of the Feldman–Cousins confidence belt.

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Acknowledgements

The Fermi-LAT Collaboration acknowledges support for LAT development, operation and data analysis from NASA and DOE (United States), CEA/Irfu and IN2P3/CNRS (France), ASI and INFN (Italy), MEXT, KEK and JAXA (Japan), and the K. A. Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and the National Space Board (Sweden). Science analysis support in the operations phase from INAF (Italy) and CNES (France) is also gratefully acknowledged. This research was supported by an ERC advanced grant (GRBs), by the I-CORE (grant No 1829/12), by the joint ISF-NSFC program (T.P.) and by the Templeton Foundation (G.A-C.).

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Author notes

  1. Vlasios Vasileiou

    Present address: Present address: Zopa Inc. 90 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN, UK.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier, Université Montpellier 2, CNRS/IN2P3, Montpellier 34095 Cédex 05, France

    Vlasios Vasileiou

  2. Department of Natural Sciences, Open University of Israel, 1 University Road, POB 808, Ra’anana 4353701, Israel

    Jonathan Granot

  3. Racah Institute for Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel

    Tsvi Piran

  4. Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma and INFN, Sezione di Roma 1, Piazzale Aldo Moro, 2 00185 Roma, Italy,

    Giovanni Amelino-Camelia

Authors
  1. Vlasios Vasileiou
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  2. Jonathan Granot
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  3. Tsvi Piran
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  4. Giovanni Amelino-Camelia
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Contributions

All authors have contributed significantly to this work. V.V. and J.G. have focused mainly on the data analysis and deriving the limits, whereas T.P. and G.A-C. have focused mainly on the theory parts.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Vlasios Vasileiou, Jonathan Granot or Tsvi Piran.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Vasileiou, V., Granot, J., Piran, T. et al. A Planck-scale limit on spacetime fuzziness and stochastic Lorentz invariance violation. Nature Phys 11, 344–346 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3270

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