Light speed variation from GRB 221009A
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 with or a bound . 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.
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