English

Light speed variation from GRB 221009A

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2023-05-17 v3 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

It is postulated in Einstein's relativity that the speed of light in vacuum is a constant for all observers. However, the effect of quantum gravity could bring an energy dependence of light speed, and a series of studies on high-energy photon events from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) suggest a light speed variation v(E)=c(1E/ELV)v(E)=c\left(1-E / E_{\mathrm{LV}}\right) with ELV=3.6×1017 GeVE_{\mathrm{LV}}=3.6 \times 10^{17} ~\mathrm{GeV} or a bound ELV3.6×1017 GeVE_{\mathrm{LV}} \ge 3.6 \times 10^{17} ~\mathrm{GeV}. From the newly observed gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A, we find that a 99.3~GeV photon detected by Fermi-LAT is coincident with the sharp spike in the light curves detected by both Fermi-GBM and HEBS under the above scenario of light speed variation, suggesting an option that this high-energy photon was emitted at the same time as a sharp spike of low-energy photon emission at the GRB source. Thus this highest energy photon event detected by Fermi-LAT during the prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts might be considered as an optional signal for the linear form modification of light speed in cosmological space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.11376,
  title  = {Light speed variation from GRB 221009A},
  author = {Jie Zhu and Bo-Qiang Ma},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.11376},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

5 latex pages, 2 figures, final version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T04:06:09.824Z