Niccoló Loret

OPERA-reassessing data on the energy dependence of the speed of neutrinos

We offer a preliminary exploration of the two sides of the challenge provided by the recent OPERA data on superluminal neutrinos. On one side we stress that some aspects of this result are puzzling even from the perspective of the wild quantum-gravity literature, where arguments in favor of the possibility of superluminal propagation have been presented, but not considering the possibility of such a sizeable effect for neutrinos of such low energies. We feel this must encourage particularly severe scrutiny of the OPERA result. On the other side, we notice that the OPERA result is reasonably consistent with μ-neutrino-speed data previously obtained at FERMILAB, reported in papers of 2007 and 1979. And it is intriguing that these FERMILAB79 and FERMILAB07 results, when combined with the new OPERA result, in principle provide a window on μ-neutrino speeds at different energies broad enough to compare alternative phenomenological models. We test the discriminating power of such an approach by using as illustrative examples the case of special-relativistic tachyons, the case of momentum-independent violations of the special-relativistic speed law, and the cases of linear and quadratic energy dependence of the speed of ultrarelativistic muon neutrinos. Even just using μ-neutrino data in the range from ~3 GeVs to ~200 GeVs the special-relativistic tachyon and the quadratic-dependence case are clearly disfavoured. The linear-dependence case gives a marginally consistent picture and the momentum-independent scenario fits robustly the data. We also comment on Supernova 1987a and its relevance for consideration of other neutrino species, also in relation with some scenarios that appeared in the large-extra-dimension literature.

Speed of particles and a relativity of locality in κ-Minkowski quantum spacetime

The last decade of research on κ-Minkowski noncommutative spacetime has been strongly characterized by a controversy concerning the speed of propagation of massless particles. Most arguments suggested that this speed should depend on the momentum of the particle strongly enough to be of interest for some ongoing experimental studies. But the only explicit derivations of worldlines in κ-Minkowski predicted no momentum dependence for the speed of massless particles. We return to this controversy equipped with the recent understanding that in some quantum spacetimes coincidences of events assessed by an observer who is distant from the events can be artifactual. We therefore set up our investigation in such a way that we never rely on the assessment of coincidences of events by distant observers. This allows us to verify explicitly that in κ-Minkowski simultaneously-emitted massless particles of different momentum are detected at different times, and establish a linear dependence of the detection times on momentum.

IceCube and GRB neutrinos propagating in quantum spacetime

Abstract Two recent publications have reported intriguing analyses, tentatively suggesting that some aspects of IceCube data might be manifestations of quantum-gravity-modified laws of propagation for neutrinos. We here propose a strategy of data analysis which has the advantage of being applicable to several alternative possibilities for the laws of propagation of neutrinos in a quantum spacetime. In all scenarios here of interest one should find a correlation between the energy of an observed neutrino and the difference between the time of observation of that neutrino and the trigger time of a GRB. We select accordingly some GRB-neutrino candidates among IceCube events, and our data analysis finds a rather strong such correlation. This sort of study naturally lends itself to the introduction of a “false alarm probability”, which for our analysis we estimate conservatively to be of 1 % . We therefore argue that our findings should motivate a vigorous program of investigation following the strategy here advocated.

Modeling Transverse Relative Locality

We investigate some aspects of relativistic classical theories with “relative locality”, in which pairs of events established to be coincident by nearby observers may be described as non-coincident by distant observers. While previous studies focused mainly on the case of longitudinal relative locality, where the effect occurs along the direction connecting the distant observer to the events, we here focus on transverse relative locality, in which instead the effect is found in a direction orthogonal to the one connecting the distant observer to the events. Our findings suggest that, at least for theories of free particles, transverse relative locality is as significant as longitudinal relative locality both conceptually and quantitatively. And we observe that “dual gravity lensing” can be viewed as one of two components of transverse relative locality. We also speculate about a type of spacetime noncommutativity for which transverse relative locality could be particularly significant.

In vacuo dispersion features for gamma-ray-burst neutrinos and photons

Ultrarelativistic photons and neutrinos from gamma-ray bursts offer a testbed for quantum gravity effects that would lead to an energy dependence of the travel times. A statistical analysis of astrophysical data shows that this behaviour may have been observed.

GRAVITY IN QUANTUM SPACE–TIME

The literature on quantum-gravity-inspired scenarios for the quantization of space–time has so far focused on particle-physics-like studies. This is partly justified by the present limitations of our understanding of quantum gravity theories, but we here argue that valuable insight can be gained through semi-heuristic analyses of the implications for gravitational phenomena of some results obtained in the quantum space–time literature. In particular, we show that the types of description of particle propagation that emerged in certain quantum space–time frameworks have striking implications for gravitational collapse and for the behavior of gravity at large distances.

Planck-scale-modified dispersion relations in homogeneous and isotropic spacetimes

The covariant understanding of dispersion relations as level sets of Hamilton functions on phase space enables us to derive the most general dispersion relation compatible with homogeneous and isotropic spacetimes. We use this concept to present a Planck-scale deformation of the Hamiltonian of a particle in Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) geometry that is locally identical to the κ-Poincare dispersion relation, in the same way as the dispersion relation of point particles in general relativity is locally identical to the one valid in special relativity. Studying the motion of particles subject to such a Hamiltonian, we derive the redshift and lateshift as observable consequences of the Planck-scale deformed FLRW universe.

Exploring special relative locality with de Sitter momentum-space

Relative Locality is a recent approach to the quantum-gravity problem which allows to tame nonlocality effects which may rise in some models which try to describe Planck-scale physics. I here explore the effect of Relative Locality on basic special-relativistic phenomena. In particular I study the deformations due to Relative Locality of special-relativistic transformation laws for momenta at all orders in the rapidity parameter

Weakness of accelerator bounds on departures from Lorentz symmetry for the electron

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Vectorlike deformations of relativistic quantum phase-space and relativistic kinematics

. I underline how those transformations also define the RL characteristic (momentum-dependent) invariant metric. I focus my analysis on the well studied deSitter momentum-space framework and I investigate the differences and similarities between this model and Special Relativity, from the definition of the boost parameter