Related papers: Ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray bounds on nonbirefring…
Nonbirefringent modified-Maxwell theory, coupled to standard Dirac particles, involves nine dimensionless parameters, which can be bounded by the inferred absence of vacuum Cherenkov radiation for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). With…
The aim of this brief review is to present a case study of how astrophysics data can be used to get bounds on Lorentz-violating parameters. For this purpose, a particularly simple Lorentz-violating modification of the Maxwell theory of…
Present and future ultra-high-energy-cosmic-ray facilities (e.g., the South and North components of the Pierre Auger Observatory) and TeV-gamma-ray telescope arrays (e.g., HESS and CTA) have the potential to set stringent bounds on the nine…
Present and future ultra-high-energy-cosmic-ray facilities (e.g., the Pierre Auger Observatory with South and North components) and TeV-gamma-ray telescope arrays (e.g., HESS or VERITAS and CTA) have the potential to set stringent indirect…
There is a unique Lorentz-violating modification of the Maxwell theory of photons, which maintains gauge invariance, CPT, and renormalizability. Restricting the modified-Maxwell theory to the isotropic sector and adding a standard…
Direct laboratory bounds on the 9 nonbirefringent Lorentz-violating dimensionless parameters of modified-Maxwell theory range from the 10^{-7} level to the 10^{-16} level. The detection of air showers initiated by charged primaries…
Cosmic rays and air showers at ultra-high energy are unique tools to test the validity of Lorentz invariance. A brief overview is given on such tests focusing on isotropic, non-birefringent Lorentz violation (LV) in the photon sector. Based…
In the last years a general consensus has emerged on the use of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) data as a powerful probe of the validity of special relativity. This applies in particular to the propagation of cosmic rays from their…
This article reviews the methods used to obtain a two-sided bound on isotropic modified Maxwell theory from experimental data of ultra high-energy cosmic rays in 2008. The bound is updated with results from the HEGRA experiment.
A detailed analysis of vacuum Cherenkov radiation in spacelike Maxwell-Chern-Simons (MCS) theory is presented. A semiclassical treatment reproduces the leading terms of the tree-level result from quantum field theory. Moreover, certain…
The propagation of photons, electrons and positrons at ultra-high energies above 10^{19} eV can be changed considerably if the dispersion relations of these particles are modified by terms suppressed by powers of the Planck scale. We…
Up to date, there is no consensus regarding the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) beyond the Greisen--Zatsepin--Kuzmin (GZK) limit. In order for these UHECRs to reach the Earth, an extremely suppressed interaction between them…
It is not yet clear whether the observed flux suppression for ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) at energies above \simeq 4.10E19 eV is a signature of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff or corresponds, for instance, to the maximum…
Recent work has shown that dispersion relations with Planck scale Lorentz violation can produce observable effects at energies many orders of magnitude below the Planck energy M. This opens a window on physics that may reveal quantum…
In extensive air showers induced by ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays, secondary particles are produced with energies far above those accessible by other means. These extreme energies can be used to search for new physics. We study the…
Ultra-high cosmic rays (UHECRs) with energies >10^19 eV emitted at cosmological distances will be attenuated by cosmic microwave and infrared background radiation through photohadronic processes. Lower energy extra-galactic cosmic rays…
Cosmic birefringence is the process that rotates the plane of polarization by an amount, $\alpha$, as photons propagate through free space. Such an effect arises in parity-violating extensions to the electromagnetic sector, such as the…
We estimate the sensitivity of various experiments detecting ultra-high-energy cosmic rays to primary photons with energies above 10^19 eV. We demonstrate that the energy of a primary photon may be significantly (up to a factor of ~ 10)…
Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays that produce giant extensive showers of charged particles and photons when they interact in the Earth's atmosphere provide a unique tool to search for new physics. Of particular interest is the possibility of…
Detecting neutrinos and photons is crucial to identifying the sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), especially for transient sources. We focus on ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray emission from transient sources such as gamma-ray…