English

Gravitational-Recoil Effects on Fermion Propagation in Space-Time Foam

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2009-09-11 v1 Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Motivated by the possible experimental opportunities to test quantum gravity via its effects on high-energy neutrinos propagating through space-time foam, we discuss how to incorporate spin structures in our D-brane description of gravitational recoil effects in vacuo. We also point to an interesting analogous condensed-matter system. We use a suitable supersymmetrization of the Born-Infeld action for excited D-brane gravitational backgrounds to argue that energetic fermions may travel slower than the low-energy velocity of light: \delta c / c \sim -E/M. It has been suggested that Gamma-Ray Bursters may emit pulses of neutrinos at energies approaching 10^{19} eV: these would be observable only if M \gsim 10^{27} GeV.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9911055,
  title  = {Gravitational-Recoil Effects on Fermion Propagation in Space-Time Foam},
  author = {J. Ellis and N. E. Mavromatos and D. V. Nanopoulos and G. Volkov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9911055},
  year   = {2009}
}

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18 pages LaTeX