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# 1 What is relativity?

## 1 What is relativity?

Arguments used in the priority debate: ”who was (were) the author(s) of the special relativity theory?” tacitly involve, without really addressing it, a fundamental physics issue. It is implicitly assumed that the basic physics behind special relativity is exactly what standard textbooks have been teaching in the last eight decades: Lorentz symmetry would be an abstract, intrinsic property of space-time that matter cannot escape. In this approach, all particles are compelled to move inside the minkowskian space-time. However, such a non-trivial interpretation of special relativity is not a well-established physical law and there is no proof of its absolute validity. It does not correspond to the initial formulation of the Poincaré relativity principle (1895-1905), and current particle theory suggests that Lorentz symmetry can be violated. A close look reveals that historical arguments are biased by physical prejudices and arbitrary interpretations.

The French mathematician Henri Poincaré was the first author to consistently formulate the relativity principle, stating (Poincaré, 1895): ”Absolute motion of matter, or, to be more precise, the relative motion of weighable matter and ether, cannot be disclosed. All that can be done is to reveal the motion of weighable matter with respect to weighable matter”. Such a revolutionary claim was not easily accepted. Poincaré was fighting for a decade to convince other scientists as well as the public opinion. He further emphasized the deep content of this new and, at the time, unconventional law of Nature when he wrote (Poincaré, 1901): ”This principle will be confirmed with increasing precision, as measurements become more and more accurate”.

Although textbooks and press usually present special relativity as having been formulated in the celebrated Einstein’s 1905 paper, several authors have emphasized the actual role of H. Poincaré in building relativity theory previous to Einstein and the relevance of Poincaré’s thought (Logunov, 1995 and 1997; Feynmann, Leighton, & Sands, 1964). In his June 1905 paper (Poincaré, 1905), published before Einsteins’s article (Einstein, 1905) arrived (on June 30) to the editor, Henri Poincaré explicitly wrote the relativistic transformation law for the charge density and velocity of motion and applied to gravity the ”Lorentz group”, assumed to hold for ”forces of whatever origin”. All the ingredients of special relativity, as well as its basic original concepts, are clearly formulated in this work which, furthermore, emphasizes the need of a new, relativistic, theory of gravitation. But Poincaré’s priority is sometimes denied on the scientific grounds that ”Einstein essentially announced the failure of all ether-drift experiments past and future as a foregone conclusion, contrary to Poincaré’s empirical bias” (Miller, 1996), that Poincaré did never ”disavow the ether” (Miller, 1996) or that ”Poincaré never challenges… the absolute time of newtonian mechanics… the ether is not only the absolute space of mechanics… but a dynamical entity” (Paty, 1996). Is this argumentation correct, is it based on well-established physical evidence? We do not think so. In fact, these authors implicitly assume that A. Einstein was right in 1905 when ”reducing ether to the absolute space of mechanics” (Paty, 1996) and that H. Poincaré was wrong because ”the ether fits quite nicely into Poincaré’s view of physical reality: the ether is real…” (Miller, 1996). But, with the present status of particle physics and cosmology, as well as of condensed-matter physics and of the theory of dynamical systems, there is no scientific evidence for Einstein’s 1905 absolute, ”geometric” view of relativity. The existence of a physical ”ether”, playing an important dynamical role, would not be incompatible with the existing (low-energy) experimental evidence for the relativity principle.

### 1.1 Particle physics point of view:

Modern particle physics has brought back the concept of a non-empty vacuum where free particles propagate: without such an ”ether” where fields can condense, the standard model of electroweak interactions could not be written and quark confinement could not be understood. The mechanism producing the masses of the W and Z bosons is close to the Meissner effect, where the condensed Cooper pairs (equivalent to the Higgs field) prevent the magnetic field (virtual photons) from propagationg beyond a certain distance (the London length) inside a superconductor: in the case of the standard model, the effect is mainly observed through the masses (inverse London lengths) of the intermediate bosons propagating in the (vacuum) Higgs field condensate. Furthermore, modern cosmology is not incompatible with the idea of an ”absolute local frame” close to that suggested by the study of cosmic microwave background radiation (see f.i. Peebbles, 1993).

Therefore, the ”ether” may well turn out to be a real entity in the XXI-th century physics and astrophysics. Then, the relativity principle would become a symmetry of physics, another revolutionary concept whose paternity was attributed to H. Poincaré by R.P. Feynman (as quoted by Logunov, 1995): ”Precisely Poincaré proposed investigating what could be done with the equations without altering their form. It was precisely his idea to pay attention to the symmetry properties of the laws of physics”. Actually, Poincaré did even more: in all his papers since 1895, he emphasized another deep concept: the dynamical origin of special relativity.

Dynamics is, by definition, a scale-dependent property of matter. In a global view of physics, a dynamical property of matter would be the opposite concept to an intrinsic, geometric property of space-time. A basic, unanswered question for particle physics is therefore: was Poincaré right when, in his papers since 1895 and in particular in his note of June 1905 strongly premonitory of nowadays grand-unified theories, he considered the relativity principle as a dynamical phenomenon, related to a common origin of all the existing forces?

As symmetries in particle physics are in general violated, Lorentz symmetry may be broken and an absolute local rest frame may be detectable through experiments performed beyond some critical scale or close to that scale. Poincaré’s special relativity (a symmetry applying to physical processes) could live with this situation, but not Einstein’s approach such as it was formulated in 1905 (an absolute geometry of space-time that matter cannot escape). But, how to check whether Lorentz symmetry is actually broken? We discuss here two issues: a) the scale where we may expect Lorentz symmetry to be violated and the scale(s) at which the effect may be observable; b) the physical phenomena and experiments potentially able to uncover Lorentz symmetry violation (LSV). Previous papers on the subject are (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1998a, 1998b, 1998c and 1999a) and references therein. We have proposed that Lorentz symmetry be a low-energy limit, broken following a $`k^2`$-law ($`k`$ = wave vector) between the low-energy region and some fundamental energy (length) scale.

### 1.2 Condensed-matter point of view:

It seems obviously justified to examine what could be a ”condensed-matter point of view”, as particle physics and cosmology have used many condensed-matter analogues in the last five decades (e.g. the pattern of spontaneous symmetry breaking) and the Klein-Gordon equation is a typical equation for wave propagation. Particle physics uses nowadays concepts such as strings, vortices, monopoles, topological defects… which are closely related to condensed-matter phenomena and make reference to the ”vacuum” as a material medium.

Lorentz symmetry, viewed as a property of dynamics, implies no reference to absolute properties of space and time (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1995). In a two-dimensional galilean space-time, the wave equation:

$$\alpha ^2\varphi /t^2^2\varphi /x^2=F(\varphi )$$
(1)
with $`\alpha `$ = $`1/c_o^2`$ and $`c_o`$ = critical speed, remains unchanged under ”Lorentz” transformations leaving invariant the squared interval $`ds^2=dx^2c_o^2dt^2`$ . Any form of matter made with solutions of equation (1) , built in the laboratory in a set-up at rest, would feel a relativistic space-time even if the real space-time is galilean and if an absolute rest frame exists in the underlying dynamics beyond the wave equation. The solitons of the sine-Gordon equation are obtained taking in (1) :

$$F(\varphi )=(\omega /c_o)^2sin\varphi $$
(2)
$`\omega `$ being a characteristic frequency of the dynamical system. The two-dimensional universe made of such sine-Gordon solitons would indeed behave like a two-dimensional minkowskian world with the laws of special relativity. The actual structure of space and time can only be found by going to deeper levels of resolution where the equation fails, similar to the way high-energy accelerator experiments explore the inner structure of ”elementary” particles (but cosmic rays have the highest attainable energies). As modern particle physics views ”elementary” particles as excitations of vacuum, there would be no inconsistency in assumig that the space-time felt by such particles is similar to the soliton analogy. and does not have and absolute meaning. In such a scenario, that cannot be ruled out by any present experiment, superluminal sectors of matter can exist and even be its ultimate building blocks. This clearly makes sense, as: a) in a perfectly transparent crystal, at least two critical speeds can be identified, those of light and sound; b) the potential approach to lattice dynamics in solid-sate physics is precisely the form of electromagnetism in the limit $`c_sc^10`$ , where $`c_s`$ is the speed of sound and $`c`$ that of light. See, for instance, (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1999a) and references therein.

At the fundamental lenght scale, and taking a simplified two-dimensional illustration, gravitation may even be a composite phenomenon (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a), related for instance to fluctuations of the parameters of equations like:

$$Ad^2/dt^2[\varphi (n)]+Hd/dt[\varphi (n+1)\varphi (n1)]\mathrm{\Phi }_n[\varphi ]=0$$
(3)
where we have quantized space to schematically account for the existence of the fundamental length $`a`$, $`\varphi `$ is a wave function, $`n`$ designs by an integer lattice sites spaced by a distance $`a`$, $`A`$ and $`H`$ are coeficients and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n[\varphi ]`$ is defined by:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_n[\varphi ]=K_{fl}[2\varphi (n)\varphi (n1)\varphi (n+1)]+\omega _{rest}^2\varphi $$
(4)
$`K_{fl}`$ being a coefficient and $`(2\pi )^1\omega _{rest}`$ a rest frequency.

In the continuum limit, the coefficients $`A=g_{00}`$ , $`H=g_{01}=g_{10}`$ and $`K_{fl}=g_{11}`$ can be regarded as the matrix elements of a space-time bilinear metric with equilibrium values: $`A=1`$ , $`H=0`$ and $`K_{fl}=K`$ . Then, a small local fluctuation:

$$A=1+\gamma $$
(5)
$$K_{fl}=K(1\gamma )$$
(6)
with $`\gamma 1`$ would be equivalent to a small, static gravitational field created by a far away source.

In conclusion, our present knowledge of condensed-matter physics does not plead in favour of Einstein’s 1905 , intrinsically geometric, approach to relativity. It instead suggests that Poincaré was right in not ruling out the Ether and in developing instead the concept of physical symmetry (the ”Lorentz group”).

## 2 Lorentz Symmetry As a Low-Energy Limit

Low-energy tests of special relativity have confirmed its validity to an extremely good accuracy ($`10^{21}`$ from nuclear magnetic resonance experiments), but the situation at very high energy remains unclear. Not only high-energy measurements are less precise, but the violation of the relativity principle can be driven by energy-dependent parameters. To discuss possible Lorentz symmetry violation, the hypothesis of a preferred refrence frame seems necessary. In what follows, all discussions are performed in this frame, that we assume to be close to the natural cosmological one defined by cosmic background radiation (see, f.i. Peebles 1993).

If Lorentz symmetry violation (LSV) follows a $`E^2`$ law ($`E`$ = energy), similar to the effective gravitational coupling, it can be $`1`$ at $`E10^{21}eV`$ (just above the highest observed cosmic-ray energies) and $`10^{26}`$ at $`E100MeV`$ (corresponding to the highest momentum scale involved in nuclear magnetic resonance experiments). Such a pattern of LSV (deformed Lorentz symmetry, DLS) will escape all existing low-energy bounds. If LSV is of order 1 at Planck scale ($`E10^{28}eV`$), and following a similar law, it will be $`10^{40}`$ at $`E100MeV`$ . Our suggestion is not in contradiction with Einstein’s thought such as it became after he had developed general relativity. In 1921 , A. Einstein wrote in ”Geometry and Experiment” (Einstein, 1921): ”The interpretation of geometry advocated here cannot be directly applied to submolecular spaces… it might turn out that such an extrapolation is just as incorrect as an extension of the concept of temperature to particles of a solid of molecular dimensions”. The absoluteness of the minkowskian space-time was clearly abandoned through this statement. It is in itself remarkable that special relativity holds at the attained accelerator energies, but there is no fundamental reason for this to be the case above Planck scale.

### 2.1 Deformed relativistic kinematics

A typical example of patterns violating Lorentz symmetry at very short distance is provided by nonlocal models where an absolute local rest frame exists and non-locality in space is introduced through a fundamental length scale $`a`$ where new physics is expected to occur (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a). Such models naturally lead to a deformed relativistic kinematics (DRK) of the form (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a and 1997b):

$$E=(2\pi )^1hca^1e(ka)$$
(7)
where $`h`$ is the Planck constant, $`c`$ the speed of light, $`k`$ the wave vector, and $`[e(ka)]^2`$ is a convex function of $`(ka)^2`$ obtained from vacuum dynamics. Such an expression is equivalent to special relativity in the small $`k`$ limit. Expanding equation (1) for $`ka1`$ , we can write (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a and 1997c):

$`e(ka)`$ $``$ $`[(ka)^2\alpha (ka)^4+(2\pi a)^2h^2m^2c^2]^{1/2}`$ (8)
$`\alpha `$ being a model-dependent constant, in the range $`0.10.01`$ for full-strength violation of Lorentz symmetry at the fundamental length scale, and m the mass of the particle. For momentum $`pmc`$ , we get:

$`E`$ $``$ $`pc+m^2c^3(2p)^1pc\alpha (ka)^2/2`$ (9)
The ”deformation” approximated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=pc\alpha (ka)^2/2`$ in the right-hand side of (9) implies a Lorentz symmetry violation in the ratio $`Ep^1`$ varying like $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(k)\mathrm{\Gamma }_0k^2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0=\alpha a^2/2`$ . If $`c`$ is a universal parameter for all particles, the DRK defined by (7) - (9) preserves Lorentz symmetry in the limit $`k0`$, contrary to the standard $`THϵ\mu `$ model (Will, 1993). If, besides $`c`$ , $`\alpha `$ is also universal, LSV does not lead (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a, c and e) to the spontaneous decays predicted in (Coleman, & Glashow, 1997 and subsequent papers) at ultra-high energy using a $`THϵ\mu `$-type approach. On more general grounds, as we also pointed out, the existence of very high-energy cosmic rays can by no means be regarded as an evidence against LSV, as the relevant kinematical balances can be sensitive to many small parameters. In particular, any form of LSV should be considered (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997d and 1997e) and not only (like in the papers by Coleman and Glashow) models driven by low-energy constant parameters.

As previously emphasized, the above non-locality may actually be an approximation to an underlying dynamics involving superluminal particles (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1996, 1997b, 1997f and 1997g), just as electromagnetism looks nonlocal in the potential approximation to lattice dynamics in solid-state physics: it would then correspond to the limit $`cc_i^10`$ where $`c_i`$ is the superluminal critical speed. Contrary to the $`THϵ\mu `$-type scenario considered by Coleman and Glashow, where LSV occurs explicitly in the hamiltonian already at $`k=0`$ through a non-universality of the critical speed in vacuum (the rest masses of charged particles are no longer given by the relation $`E=mc^2`$ , $`c`$ being the speed of light in the $`k0`$ limit), our DLS approach can preserve standard gravitation and general relativity as low-energy limits. Furthermore, phenomenological estimates by Coleman and Glashow do not consider possible deformations of the relativistic kinematics: they use undeformed kinematics for single particles at ultra-high cosmic-ray energies. More recent (1998) papers by these authors bring no new result as compared to our 1997 papers and present the same fundamental limitation as their 1997 article. Physically, the two approaches are really different: by choosing a $`THϵ\mu `$ scenario, Coleman and Glashow implicitly assume that Lorentz symmetry is broken in an ”external” way, by a small macroscopic  effect. On the contrary, as explained above, our pattern attributes LSV to an ”internal” very high-energy, very low-distance phenomenon completely disappearing at macroscopic scale.

A fundamental question is whether $`c`$ and $`\alpha `$ are universal. This may be the case for all ”elementary” particles, i.e. quarks, leptons, gauge bosons…, but the situation is less obvious for hadrons, nuclei and heavier objects. From a naive soliton model (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997b and 1997f), we inferred that: a) $`c`$ is expected to be universal up to extremely small corrections ($`10^{40}`$ , far below the values considered by Coleman and Glashow) escaping all existing bounds; b) an approximate rule can be to take $`\alpha `$ universal for leptons, gauge bosons and light hadrons (pions, nucleons…) and assume a $`\alpha m^2`$ law for nuclei and heavier objects, the nucleon mass setting the scale. With this rule, DRK introduces no anomaly in the relation between inertial and gravitational masses at large scale (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1998c). Basically, the $`\alpha m^2`$ law makes compatible DRK for a large body with a similar DRK for smaller parts of it which, otherwise, could not travel at the same speed as the whole body if the relation $`v=dE/dp`$ (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a , 1997d and 1997f) is used.

The main effect of DRK can be decribed as follows. The deformation term increases with energy roughly like $`E^3`$ , whereas the ”mass term” in (9) decreases like $`E^1`$ . The ratio between the two terms varies like $`E^4`$ and, above some energy depending on the parameters involved, the deformation becomes dominant as compared to the mass term. Very-high energy kinematics in the laboratory rest frame is, basically, dominated by longitudinal momentum: as everything else becomes ”small”, and longitudinal momentum has to be exactly conserved, the real kinematical balances occur entirely between ”small” terms. Therefore, a ”small” violation of the relativity principle can potentially play a crucial role in these balances. If $`c`$ is universal, $`\alpha `$ must be positive to avoid the spontaneous decay of UHE (ultra-high energy) particles (unless the effect is not observable below $`3.10^{20}eV`$). The universality of $`\alpha `$ up to small corrections is imposed by the requirement that elementary particles be able to reach very high energies (again, if the effect is to be obervable below $`3.10^{20}eV`$). Otherwise, particles with smaller positive values of $`\alpha `$ would decay into those with larger $`\alpha `$ (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997e) and the effect would manifest itself in high-energy cosmic-ray events.

### 2.2 Alternative models

The above model is not the only possible way to deform relativistic kinematics. Alternatives are:

Mixing with superluminal sectors (MSLS). A form of DRK was predicted in our papers since 1995, where we attributed (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1995) Lorentz symmetry violation to a very high-energy, very low-distance phenomenon which would modify the propagators of ”ordinary” particles (those with critical speed in vacuum equal to $`c`$ , the speed of light): the dynamics driving LSV was expected to be generated at Planck scale or at some other fundamental length scale. The energy-dependence of LSV was claimed to be the explanation to the apparent validity of the Poincaré relativity principle, as inferred from low-energy tests. We also pointed out (see, e.g. Gonzalez-Mestres, 1996) that ultra-high-energy cosmic rays would be a natural experimental framework to explore possible Lorentz symmetry violation phenomena. A LSV scenario suggested in all these papers was mixing between ”ordinary” and superluminal particles directly deforming propagators (see also Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997d where energy-dependent mixing parameters were explicitly used, preserving Lorentz symmetry in the $`k0`$ limit). Using such models, counterexamples to the claims made in (Coleman and Glashow, 1997) were presented, based on the energy-dependence of LSV effective parameters. Through the parametrizations thus considered, it was also pointed out that, besides a fundamental length scale, masses of heavy superluminal particles can play a significant role in killing low-energy LSV.

The basic idea of our superluminal particle (superbradyons, see e.g. Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997g) model was that several sectors of matter are generated at the fundamental length scale(s), each sector possibly satisfying a ”sectorial” Lorentz invariance vith a ”sectorial” critical speed in vacuum ($`c_i`$ for the $`i`$-th superluminal sector). Superbradyons would have positive mass and energy, and satisfy sectorial motion equations (e.g. Klein-Gordon) with critical speed $`c_i`$ : thay are not tachyons. Dynamical mixing between two sectors would break both Lorentz invariances, and mixing with superluminal sectors (MSLS) would be enough to produce a consistent DRK for ”ordinary” matter. But, if LSV is generated in this way, we also expect more conventional deformations of particle propagators to occur, other than direct mixing between different sectors of matter.

Linear deformation. When building (1997) the DRK approach given by (7)-(9), where the effective deformation parameter depends quadratically on energy (quadratically deformed relativistic kinematics, QDRK), we were also naturally led to consider models where this dependence is linear (linearly deformed relativistic kinematics, LDRK), i.e. where $`e(ka)`$ is a function of $`ka`$ and, for $`ka1`$ :

$`e(ka)[(ka)^2\beta (ka)^3+(2\pi a)^2h^2m^2c^2]^{1/2}`$ (10)
$`\beta `$ being a model-dependent constant. For momentum $`pmc`$ :

$`Epc+m^2c^3(2p)^1pc\beta (ka)/2`$ (11)
the deformation $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=pc\beta (ka)/2`$ being now driven by an effective parameter proportional to momentum, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(k)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^lk`$ where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^l=\beta a/2`$ .

QDRK naturally emerges when a fundamental length scale is introduced to deform the Klein-Gordon equations. It is typical, for instance, of phonons in condensed-matter physics. As recently pointed out (Ellis et al., 1999a and b) using a class of string models, LDRK can be generated by introducing a background gravitational field in the propagation equations of free particles. In the first case, the Planck scale is an internal parameter of the basic wave equations generating the ”elementary” particles as vacuum excitations. In the second case, it manifests itself only as a parameter of the background gravitational field, similar to a refraction phenomenon. By discriminating between the two parametrizations, or excluding both approaches, feasible experiments at available energies can potentially provide very valuable information on fundamental Planck-scale physics. Our choice in 1997 was to concentrate on the QDRK model and disregard LDRK, for phenomenological reasons which seem to remain valid if the new physics is expected to be generated not too far from Planck scale.

If existing bounds on LSV from nuclear magnetic resonance experiments are to be intepreted as setting a bound of $`10^{21}`$ on relative LSV at the momentum scale $`p100MeV`$ , this implies $`\beta a<10^{34}cm`$ . However, as it will be explained later, it turns out that LDRK can lead to many inconsistencies with cosmic-ray experiments unless $`\beta a`$ is much smaller. Concepts and formulae presented in our previous papers for QDRK (see next section) can be readily extended to LDRK, using similar techniques. In particular:

\- the linear deformation term $`pc\beta (ka)/2`$ and the mass term $`m^2c^3(2p)^1`$ become of the same order at the energy scale $`E_{trans}\pi ^{1/3}h^{1/3}(2\beta )^{1/3}a^{1/3}m^{2/3}c^{5/3}`$ ;

\- the linear deformation term and the target energy $`E_T`$ become of the same order at the energy scale $`E_{lim}(2\pi )^{1/2}(E_Ta^1\beta ^1hc)^{1/2}`$ .

\- if the same philosophy as for QDRK is to be followed, $`c`$ and $`\beta `$ would be universal for all ”elementary” particles including light hadrons, whereas for larger objects $`\beta m^1`$ , the nucleon mass setting the scale.

Modifications of QDRK. Our conjecture that $`\alpha `$ has the same value for light hadrons as for the photon and leptons derives from the result (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997f) that the elementary soliton solution on a one-dimesional space lattice obeys the same deformed kinematics as plane waves on the same lattice and with the same dalembertian operator (discretized in space), if the soliton size scale is basically the quantum inverse of its mass scale. As the highest-energy observed cosmic-ray events seem to be hadronic and not electromagnetic, the conjecture seems sensible on practical grounds. But it can also be argued that quarks are the real elementary particles and that, to be consistent with quark propagation, the value of $`\alpha `$ should be divided by a factor $`4`$ for mesons and $`9`$ for baryons. Actually, the parton picture seems impossible to implement when the deformation becomes important, as in the conventional parton model the constituents can carry arbitrary fractions of energy and momentum at very high energy and the deformation energy depends crucially on these fractions (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997f): we therefore expect the failure of any parton model at these energies.

A phenomenological discussion of the latter hypothesis is nevertheless worth attempting: for instance, if alpha is to be divided by a factor of 9 for the proton and 4 for the pion, and the highest-energy cosmic-ray events are due to protons, the requirement that the spontaneous decay $`pp+\gamma `$ does not occur would then imply $`\alpha a^2<2.10^{73}cm^2`$ . This would exclude LSV with strong coupling at the Planck scale. A similar kinematical analysis seems to hold for nuclei unless dynamics prevents the decay (see next section). With $`\alpha a^2=2.10^{73}cm^2`$ , a proton with $`E10^{21}eV`$ could also emit pions and, above $`E10^{20}eV`$ , pion lifetimes would become much shorter than predicted by special relativity and charged pions can emit photons.

## 3 QDRK and Ultra-High Energy Cosmic-Ray (UHECR) Physics

If Lorentz symmetry is broken at Planck scale or at some other fundamental length scale, the effects of LSV may be accessible to experiments well below this energy: in particular, they can produce detectable phenomena at the highest observed cosmic ray energies. DRK (Gonzalez-Mestres 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1997h and 1998a) plays a crucial role. Taking the quadratic deformation (QDRK) version of DRK, it is found that, at energies above $`E_{trans}\pi ^{1/2}h^{1/2}(2\alpha )^{1/4}a^{1/2}m^{1/2}c^{3/2}`$, the very small deformation $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ dominates over the mass term $`m^2c^3(2p)^1`$ in (3) and modifies all kinematical balances: physics gets thus closer to Planck scale than to electroweak scale (this is actually the case in a logarithmic plot of energy scales) and UHECR become an efficient probe of Planck-scale physics. Because of the negative value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ , it costs more and more energy, as energy increases above $`E_{trans}`$, to split the incoming logitudinal momentum in the laboratory rest frame. As the ratio $`m^2c^3(2p\mathrm{\Delta }E)^1`$ varies like $`E^4`$ , the transition at $`E_{trans}`$ is very sharp.

With such a LSV pattern, we also inferred (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997f) from a toy soliton model that the parton picture (in any version), as well as standard relativistic formulae for Lorentz contraction and time dilation, are expected to fail above this energy (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997b and 1997f) which corresponds to $`E10^{20}eV`$ for $`m`$ = proton mass and $`\alpha a^210^{72}cm^2`$ (f.i. $`\alpha 10^6`$ and $`a`$ = Planck length), and to $`E10^{18}eV`$ for $`m`$ = pion mass and $`\alpha a^210^{67}cm^2`$ (f.i. $`\alpha 0.1`$ and $`a`$ = Planck length). Such effects are in principle detectable. A phenomenological study of the implications of DRK allowed to draw several important conclusions for UHECR experiments (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997-99).

### 3.1 Our previous predictions with QDRK

Assuming that the earth moves slowly with respect to the absolute rest frame (the ”vacuum rest frame”), so that the approximation (9) remains valid in the laboratory rest frame, QDRK can lead to observable phenomena in future experiments devoted to the highest-energy cosmic rays:

a) For $`\alpha a^2>10^{72}cm^2`$ , assuming universal values of $`\alpha `$ and $`c`$ , there is no Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff (Greisen 1966; Zatsepin & Kuzmin, 1966) for the particles under consideration. Due to the new kinematics, interactions with cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons are strongly inhibited or forbidden, and ultra-high energy cosmic rays (e.g. protons) from anywhere in the presently observable Universe can reach the earth (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a and 1997c). In particular, for an incoming UHE nucleon hitting a CMB photon, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance can no longer be formed due to the deformation term. Proton deceleration in astrophysical objects (e.g. gamma-ray bursters) can be inhibited in a similar way.

b) With the same hypothesis, unstable particles with at least two stable particles in the final states of all their decay channels become stable at very high energy. Above $`E_{trans}`$, the lifetimes of all unstable particles (e.g. the $`\pi ^0`$ in cascades) become much longer than predicted by relativistic kinematics (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a, 1997b and 1997c). Then, for instance, the neutron or even the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$ can be candidates for the primaries of the highest-energy cosmic ray events. If $`c`$ and $`\alpha `$ are not exactly universal, many different scenarios can happen concerning the stability of ultra-high-energy particles (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a, 1997b and 1997c).

c) In astrophysical processes at very high energy, similar mechanisms can inhibit radiation under external forces (e.g. synchrotron-like, where the interactions occur with virtual photons), GZK-like cutoffs, decays, photodisintegration of nuclei, momentum loss trough collisions (e.g. with a photon wind in reverse shocks), production of lower-energy secondaries… potentially contributing to solve all basic problems raised by the highest-energy cosmic rays (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997e), including acceleration mechanisms.

d) With the same hypothesis, the allowed final-state phase space of two-body collisions is strongly reduced at very high energy, leading (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997e) to a sharp fall of partial and total cross-sections for incoming cosmic ray energies above $`E_{lim}(2\pi )^{2/3}(E_Ta^2\alpha ^1h^2c^2)^{1/3}`$, where $`E_T`$ is the energy of the target. As a consequence, and with the previous figures for Lorentz symmetry violation parameters, above some energy $`E_{lim}`$ between 10<sup>22</sup> and $`10^{24}`$ $`eV`$ a cosmic ray will not deposit most of its energy in the atmosphere and can possibly fake an exotic event with much less energy (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997e).

e) Actually, requiring simultaneously the absence of GZK cutoff in the region $`E10^{20}eV`$ , and that cosmic rays with energies below $`3.10^{20}eV`$ deposit most of their energy in the atmosphere, leads in the DRK scenario to the constraint: $`10^{72}cm^2<\alpha a^2<10^{61}cm^2`$ , equivalent to $`10^{20}<\alpha <10^9`$ for $`a10^{26}cm`$ ($`10^{21}GeV`$ scale). Remarkably enough, assuming full-strength LSV forces $`a`$ to be in the range $`10^{36}cm<a<10^{30}cm`$ . But a $`10^6`$ LSV at Planck scale can still explain the data. Thus, the simplest version of QDRK naturally fits, on phenomenological grounds, with the expected potential role of Planck scale in generating the standard ”elementary” particles and opening the door to new physics.

f) Effects a) to e) are obtained applying DRK to single particles and collisions. If further dynamical anomalies are added (failure, at very small distance scales, of the parton model and of the standard relativistic formulae for Lorentz contraction and time dilation…), we can expect much stronger effects in the early cascade development profiles of cosmic-ray events (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997b, 1997f and 1998a). Detailed phenomenology and data analysis in next-generation experiments may uncover spectacular new physics and provide a powerful microscope directly focused on the fundamental length (Planck?) scale.

g) Cosmic superluminal particles would produce atypical events with very small total momentum (due to the high $`E/p`$ ratio), isotropic or involving several jets (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1996, 1997b, 1997d, 1997 and 1998b). In the atmosphere (f.i. AUGER or satellite-based experiments), such events would generate exceptional cascade development profiles and muon spectra, as will be discussed in a forthcoming paper.

\***************************************************************************************

It should be noticed that our description of all these phenomena and, in particular, of points a) and b) , on the grounds of DRK was prior to any similar claim by Coleman and Glashow from $`THϵ\mu `$-like models.

\***************************************************************************************

It follows from b) and f) that early cascade development is a crucial point for possible tests of special relativity in UHCR cosmic-ray events. Unfortunately, this part of the interactions induced by the incoming cosmic ray is not easily detectable: it occurs early in the atmosphere, and it takes a few collisions before energy is degraded into a large enough number of particles to produce an observable fluorescence signal. Data on cascade development start well below the first interaction of the primary with the atmosphere whereas we expect LSV, if present, to manifest itself only in the first few collisions. But the effect will propagate to later multiparticle production and be observable: for instance, if the $`\pi ^0`$ does not decay at very high energy, we expect a smaller electromagetic component developing later and more muons produced. A serious drawback is the present ambiguousness of phenomenological air shower models, but combined data from AUGER and satellite-based experiments should help to clarify this situation. A recent fit to the UHECR spectrum with a model close to QDRK, reproducing the absence of GZK cutoff, can be found in (Chechin & Vavilov, 1999).

### 3.2 On cosmic-ray composition

Cosmic-ray composition above $`10^{17}eV`$ is a crucial question. Protons are often preferred as candidates to UHECR events (Bird et al., 1993), but detailed analysis are not yet conclusive (f.i. AGASA Collaboration, 1999) and there are claims in favor of light nuclei up to 2.10$`{}_{}{}^{19}eV`$ (f.i. Wolfendale & Wibig, 1999). It is commonly agreed that the UHECR composition becomes lighter above $`5.10^{17}eV`$ , as energy increases, and tends to be protons at the highest observed energies. It may be interesting to compare this phenomenon with QDRK predictions, keeping in mind the proposed $`\alpha m^2`$ law. This law naturally allows, kinematically, spontaneous $`NN+\gamma `$ decays ($`N`$ = nucleus) at very high energy. If $`\alpha a^210^{67}cm^2`$ , the threshold for spontaneous gamma emission would be $`3.10^{19}eV`$ for $`Fe`$ and $`10^{19}eV`$ for $`He^4`$ .

It should be noticed, however, that although spontaneous gamma emission will be kinematically allowed for large objects because of the $`\alpha m^2`$ law, it will become more and more unnatural dynamically as their size increases. Such an outgoing photon would carry an energy much larger than that of any incoming nucleon and its wavelength would be smaller, by orders of magnitude, than the size of the composite object.

### 3.3 Neutrinos from gamma-ray bursts

The basic idea (Waxman and Bahcall, 1999) is that, in reverse shocks, protons are accelerated to energies $`10^{20}eV`$ and collide with ambient photons producing, in the kinematical region where the center of mass energy corresponds to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ resonance, charged pions with about 20$`\%`$ of the initial proton energy. These pions subsequently decay into muons and muon neutrinos ($`\pi ^+\mu ^++\nu _\mu `$), and the muons decay later into electrons, electron neutrinos and muon antineutrinos ($`\mu ^+e^++\nu _e+\overline{\nu }_\mu `$) . It should be noticed that, beacuse of Lorentz dilation, the lifetime for the first decay at pion energy $`2.10^{19}eV`$ is $`3000s`$ whereas the muon lifetime at $`10^{19}eV`$ is $`10^5s`$ . These time scales are already longer than those of gamma-ray bursts. But the situation, for UHE neutrino production, may be considerably worsened by LSV. For $`\alpha a^2>10^{72}cm^2`$ , the lifetime of a $`10^{20}eV`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ is modified by QDRK and gets much longer. If $`\alpha a^2>10^{70}cm^2`$ , the resonance becomes stable at the same energy with respect to the $`ne^+\nu _\mu \overline{\nu }_\mu \nu _e`$ decay channel. Also, as previoulsy stated, much higher photon energies are required to form a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance. In both cases, pion photoproduction is strongly inhibited and the calculation presented in (Waxman and Bahcall, 1999) is to be modified leading to a lower neutrino flux. Similarly, the lifetimes of UHE charged pions and muons become much longer and lower the neutrino flux further. At the same time, QDRK may inhibit UHE proton syncrotron radiation and allow the proton to be accelerated to energies above $`10^{20}eV`$ .

As DRK makes velocity, $`v=dE/dp`$ , energy-dependent (Gonzalez-Mestres, 1997a and 1997d), the arrival time on earth of particles produced in a single burst is expected to dependent on the particle energy. But, contrary to the claim presented in (Ellis et al., 1999a), it follows from the above considerations that observing UHE neutrinos from GRB bursts for QDRK with $`\alpha a^2>10^{72}cm^2`$ will most likely be much more difficult (if at all possible) than naively expected from the Waxman-Bahcall model.

## 4 LDRK, gamma-ray bursts and TeV physics

Considering vacuum as a medium similar to an electromagnetic plasma, it was suggested in (Amelino-Camelia et al., 1998) that quantum-gravitational fluctuations may lead to a correction, linear in energy, to the velocity of light. This is equivalent to a LDRK that, for $`ka1`$ , can be parameterized as:

$`Epcpc\beta (ka)/2=pcp^2M^1`$ (12)
where $`M`$ is an effective mass scale. Possible tests of this model through gamma-ray bursts, measuring the delays in the arrival time of photons of different energies, have been considered in (Norris et al., 1999) having in mind the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) and in (Ellis et al., 1999b) with a more general scope. Biller et al. (1998) claim a lower bound on $`M`$ slightly above $`10^{16}GeV`$ .

However, from the same considerations already developed in our 1997-99 papers taking QDRK as an exemple, stringent bounds on LDRK can be derived. Assume that LDRK applies only to photons, and not to charged particles, so that at high energy we can write for a charged particle, $`ch`$ , the dispersion relation:

$`E_{ch}`$ $``$ $`p_{ch}c+m_{ch}^2c^3(2p_{ch})^1`$ (13)
where the $`ch`$ subscript stands for the charged particle under consideration. Then, it can be readily checked that the decay $`chch+\gamma `$ would be allowed for $`p`$ above $`(2m_{ch}^2Mc^3)^{1/3}`$ , i.e:

\- for an electron, above $`E2TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ and $`20TeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$

\- for a muon or charged pion, above $`E80TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ and $`800TeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$

\- for a proton, above $`E240TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ and $`2.4PeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$

\- for a $`\tau `$ lepton, above $`E400TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ and $`4PeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$

so that none of these particles would be oberved above such energies, apart from very short paths. Such decays seem to be in obvious contradiction with cosmic ray data, but avoiding them forces the charged particles to have the same kind of propagators as the photon, with the same effective value of $`M`$ up to small differences. Similar conditions are readily derived for all ”elementary” particles, leading for all of them, up to small devations, to a LDRK given by the universal dispersion relation:

$`Epc+m^2c^3(2p)^1p^2M^1`$ (14)
For instance, $`\pi ^0`$ production would otherwise be inhibited. But if, as it seems compulsory, the $`\pi ^0`$ kinematics follows a similar law, then the decay time for $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ will become much longer than predicted by special relativity at energies above $`50TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ and $`500TeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$ . Again, this seems to be in contradiction with cosmic-ray data. Requiring that the $`\pi ^0`$ lifetime agrees with special relativity at $`E10^{17}eV`$ would force $`M`$ to be above $`10^{26}GeV`$ , far away from the values to be tested at GLAST. Another bound is obtained from the condition that there are $`3.10^{20}eV`$ cosmic-ray events. Setting $`E_{lim}`$ to this value, and taking oxygen to be the target, yields $`M3.10^{21}GeV`$ . In view of these bounds, it appears very difficult to make LDRK , with $`M`$ reasonably close to Planck scale, compatible with experimental data. It therefore seems necessary to reconsider the models to be tested at GLAST.

## 5 Conclusions and comments

If, as conjectured by Poincaré, special relativity is a symmetry of dynamical origin, Lorentz symmetry violation at very high energy would not be unnatural. But checking it appears to be a difficult task. If LSV is generated at some fundamental length (e.g. Planck) scale, we expect it to be driven by energy-dependent parameters becoming very small in the low-energy region where impressive tests of the validity of the relativity principle have been performed (Lamoreaux et al., 1986; Hills & Hall, 1990). It therefore seems natural, contrary to the $`THϵ\mu `$ model, to preserve Lorentz symmetry as a low-energy limit. In deformed Lorentz symmetry models, leading in particular to various versions of deformed relativistic kinematics, the deformation disappears in the limit $`k0`$ . DRK is far from being unique, as it can be generated in many different ways, and its predictions are strongly model-dependent. Unlike a previous attempt (Kirzhnits & Chechin, 1972), we have pursued the idea that: a) the fundamental length scale is at the origin of LSV and should be taken seriously in all respects; b) physics can vary smoothly down to this scale where a new dynamics manifests itself; c) LSV is not related to any other fundamental symmetry generalizing special relativity. It then turns out that, at energies well below the fundamental length scale, a very small LSV can generate observable leading-order effects and even allow to discriminate between models of vacuum at Planck scale.

Ambitious prospects, based on LDRK (linearly deformed relativistic kinematics, obtained from Planck-scale ”vacuum recoil” models), to measure a possible systematic energy-dependence in time delays from gamma-ray bursts are confronted to apparent incompatibilities between cosmic-ray data and the orders of magnitude of LDRK parameters considered. The basic reason is that LSV, if realized in this way, would manifest itself in many other phenomena already accessible to experiment (cosmic rays in the TeV - PeV range). However, the fact that the study of LDRK has led to consider such comparatively low energies pleads in favour of precision tests of special relativity at the highest-energy accelerators (LHC, VLHC and beyond). Although the existence of observable effects of LDRK at the gamma-ray burst photon energies seems unlikely, systematic tests of special relativity at energies between 1 TeV and 1 PeV are missing and should be performed.

On phenomenological grounds, QDRK (quadratically deformed relativistic kinematics, obtained when a fundamental length scale is introduced in the dynamics generating ”elementary” particles) seems to be the most performant model and naturally fits with possible new Planck-scale physics. UHE (ultra-high energy) CR (cosmic-ray) physics appears to be the safest laboratory to test LSV, allowing for unconventional phenomena in early cascade development. If Lorentz symmetry is violated, the study of UHECR events may be a powerful tool to get direct information on fundamental physics at Planck scale. At the highest oberved cosmic-ray energies, the effect of LSV at Planck scale can already lead to spectacular signatures: absence of the GZK cutoff; drastic modifications of lifetimes, as well as of total and partial cross-sections; failure of any parton picture as well as of standard formulae for time dilation and Lorentz contraction… But further work is required to clearly translate the physical signatures into measurable data (cascade development profile, muons, electromagnetic yield…). Models of air shower formation should be improved in order to remove many interpretation uncertainties. A basic difficulty is that, although the primary interaction occurs quite early in the atmosphere, a detectable fluorescence yield is emitted only after a few interactions, when many charged particles have been produced and the atmosphere is denser. Combined information from future experiments, such as AUGER and satellite-based measurements, will hopefully make this task easier.

The existence of superluminal particles (superbradyons) is not excluded if LSV occurs at Planck scale: they may even be the ultimate constituents of matter. This subject will be discussed at length elsewhere.

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