Related papers: Planck scale still safe from stellar images
The observations of photons from the BL Lac object Mk501 with energies above 10 TeV and of cosmic rays with energies above the GZK threshold appear to be inconsistent with conventional theories. Remarkably, among the recent new-physics…
Tunneling and Coulomb drag are sensitive probes of spontaneous interlayer phase coherence in bilayer two-dimensional electron systems at total Landau level filling factor $\nu_T = 1$. We find that the phase boundary between the interlayer…
The nonlinear quantum interaction of a linearly polarized x-ray probe beam with a focused intense standing laser wave is studied theoretically. Because of the tight focusing of the standing laser pulse, diffraction effects arise for the…
Extending the commutator algebra of quantum $\kappa$-Poincar\'e symmetry to the whole of the phase space, and assuming that this algebra is to be covariant under action of deformed Lorentz generators, we derive the transformation properties…
Some modified two-slit interference experiments were carried out showing an apparent paradox in wave-particle duality. In a typical such experiment, the screen, where the interference pattern is supposed to be formed, is replaced by a…
A time-varying fine structure constant alpha(t) could give rise to Lorentz- and CPT-violating changes to the vacuum polarization, which would affect photon propagation. Such changes to the effective action can violate gauge invariance, but…
If scale invariance is exact, unparticles are unlikely to be probed in colliders since there are stringent constraints from astrophysics and cosmology. However these constraints are inapplicable if scale invariance is broken at a scale mu…
One of the firm predictions of inflationary cosmology is the consistency relation between scalar and tensor spectra. It has been argued that such a relation -if experimentally confirmed- would offer strong support for the idea of inflation.…
We argue that a quantum aether is consistent with the principle of relativity and can provide an economical way of having an invariant quantum gravity or Planck scale. We also show that it may change the effective scale at which quantum…
Using the Boltzmann equation with a Langevin-like term describing the stochastic force in a baryon-photon plasma, we investigate the influence of the incoherent electron-photon scattering on the subhorizon evolution of the cosmic microwave…
A random-matrix theory is presented for the reflection of light by a disordered medium backed by a phase-conjugating mirror. Two regimes are distinguished, depending on the relative magnitude of the inverse dwell time of a photon in the…
While observations indicate that the predominant source of cosmic inhomogeneities are adiabatic perturbations, there are a variety of candidates to provide auxiliary trace effects, including inflation-generated primordial tensors and cosmic…
Anisotropy data analysis leaves a significant degeneracy between primeval spectral index (n_s) and cosmic opacity to CMB photons (\tau). Low--l polarization measures, in principle, can remove it. We perform a likelihood analysis to see how…
The propagation of $\gamma$ rays over very large distances provides new insights on the intergalactic medium and on fundamental physics. On their path to the Earth, $\gamma$ rays can annihilate with diffuse infrared or optical photons of…
The origin of dark energy remains to be one of the challenges of modern cosmology. We modify Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory using a vector field instead of a scalar field and theory becomes similar to a simple Einstein-aether theory. The time…
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…
I show that it is possible to formulate the Relativity postulates in a way that does not lead to inconsistencies in the case of space-times whose short-distance structure is governed by an observer-independent length scale. The consistency…
Refraction, traditionally viewed as a geometric event occurring at material interfaces, is now being re-examined through the lens of coherence. Recent studies in optics and photonics, including coherence tomography, Moire interference, and…
We derive the semiclassical equation of motion for the wave-packet of light taking into account the Berry curvature in the momentum space. This equation naturally describes the interplay between the orbital and spin angular momenta, i.e.,…
The classical and quantum models of the Friedmann universe originally filled with a scalar field and radiation have been studied. The radiation has been used to specify a reference frame that makes it possible to remove ambiguities in…