1997/12/31 by G. Amelino-Camelia, John Ellis, N. E. Mavromatos +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/31647
published as Nature 393:763-765,1998 · LaTex. 9 pages. Version accepted for publication in Nature. (A few changes to the reference list. Additional comments on the analyticity properties of the dispersion law.)
arxiv created 1998/04/17 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
The recent confirmation that at least some gamma-ray bursters (GRBs) are indeed at cosmological distances raises the possibility that observations of these could provide interesting constraints on the fundamental laws of physics. Here we demonstrate that the fine-scale time structure and hard spectra of GRB emissions are very sensitive to the possible dispersion of electromagnetic waves in vacuo with velocity differences δv ∼ E/E\QG, as suggested in some approaches to quantum gravity. A simple estimate shows that GRB measurements might be sensitive to a dispersion scale EQG comparable to the Planck energy scale EP ∼ 1019 GeV, sufficient to test some of these theories, and we outline aspects of an observational programme that could address this goal.