Related papers: Constraining the New Aether: Gravitational Cherenk…
A self consistent effective field theory of modified gravity has recently been proposed with spontaneous breaking of local Lorentz invariance. The symmetry is broken by a vector field with the wrong-sign mass term and it has been shown to…
We consider the possibility that Lorentz violation can generate differences between the limiting velocities of light and charged matter. Such effects would lead to efficient vacuum Cherenkov radiation or rapid photon decay. The absence of…
Survival of high-energy cosmic rays (HECRs) against gravitational Cherenkov losses is shown not to cast strong constraints on MOND theories that are compatible with general relativity (GR): theories that coincide with GR in the…
Although Lorentz symmetry is a staple of General Relativity (GR), there are several reasons to believe it may not hold in a more advanced theory of gravity, such as quantum gravity. Einstein-aether theory is a modified theory of gravity…
We argue that ``effective'' superluminal travel, potentially caused by the tipping over of light cones in Einstein gravity, is always associated with violations of the null energy condition (NEC). This is most easily seen by working…
In this article we analyze the radiation loss from a high energy cosmic ray proton propagating in a spacetime with non-systematic Lorentz violation. From an effective field theory perspective we illuminate flaws in previous attempts that…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) is a proposed constraint on theories with gauge fields and gravity, requiring the existence of light charged particles and/or imposing an upper bound on the field theory cutoff $\Lambda$. If taken as a…
We investigate the stability of theories in which Lorentz invariance is spontaneously broken by fixed-norm vector "aether" fields. Models with generic kinetic terms are plagued either by ghosts or by tachyons, and are therefore physically…
The debate on gravity theories to extend or modify General Relativity is very active today because of the issues related to ultra-violet and infra-red behavior of Einstein's theory. In the first case, we have to address the Quantum Gravity…
The energy-momentum tensor (EMT) of the proton encodes fundamental information about its mass, pressure, and shear distributions. Using recent lattice QCD data for the gravitational form factors, we show that the Breit-frame Wigner EMT may…
The Einstein theory of general relativity provides a peculiar example of classical field theory ruled by non-linear partial differential equations. A number of supplementary conditions (more frequently called gauge conditions) have also…
The modified Gauss-Bonnet gravity can be motivated by a number of physical reasons, including: the uniqueness of a gravitational Lagrangian in four and higher dimensions and the leading order $\alpha^\prime$ corrections in superstring…
Astroparticle physics has recently reached a new status of precision due to the construction of new observatories, operating innovative technologies and the detection of large numbers of events and sources. The precise measurements of…
From a previous paper where we proposed a description of general relativity within the gravito-electromagnetic limit, we propose an alternative modified gravitational theory. As in the former version, we analyze the vector and tensor…
The tiny modification of dispersion relation induced by Lorentz violation (LV) is an essential issue in quantum gravity (QG) theories, which can be magnified into significant effects when dealing with astrophysical observations at high…
There is no aberration of terrestrial sources, because the light-vector has an inertial component. A new analysis of the Michelson Morley experiment shows: Light propagates anisotropically relative to a moving system, dependent on the…
Special relativity asserts that physical phenomena appear the same for all inertially moving observers. This symmetry, called Lorentz symmetry, relates long wavelengths to short ones: if the symmetry is exact it implies that spacetime must…
Spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking can occur when the dynamics of a tensor field cause it to take on a non-zero expectation value in vacuo, thereby providing one or more "preferred directions" in spacetime. Couplings between such fields…
The source of CPT-violation in the photon sector of the Standard Model Extension arises from a Chern-Simons-like contribution that involves a coupling to a fixed background vector field $k_{AF}^\mu$. These Lorentz- and CPT-violating photons…
We construct effective field theories in which gravity is modified via spontaneous breaking of local Lorentz invariance. This is a gravitational analogue of the Higgs mechanism. These theories possess additional graviton modes and modified…