Constraints on Lorentz Invariance Violation using INTEGRAL/IBIS observations of GRB041219A

📝 Abstract

One of the experimental tests of Lorentz invariance violation is to measure the helicity dependence of the propagation velocity of photons originating in distant cosmological obejcts. Using a recent determination of the distance of the Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 041219A, for which a high degree of polarization is observed in the prompt emission, we are able to improve by 4 orders of magnitude the existing constraint on Lorentz invariance violation, arising from the phenomenon of vacuum birefringence.

💡 Analysis

One of the experimental tests of Lorentz invariance violation is to measure the helicity dependence of the propagation velocity of photons originating in distant cosmological obejcts. Using a recent determination of the distance of the Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 041219A, for which a high degree of polarization is observed in the prompt emission, we are able to improve by 4 orders of magnitude the existing constraint on Lorentz invariance violation, arising from the phenomenon of vacuum birefringence.

📄 Content

Constraints on Lorentz Invariance Violation using INTEGRAL/IBIS observations of GRB041219A P. Laurent APC Laboratory, CEA/IRFU, Universit´e Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, Observatoire de Paris, 10, rue Alice Domon et L´eonie Duquet, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France∗ D. G¨otz AIM (UMR 7158 CEA/DSM-CNRS-Universit´e Paris Diderot) Irfu/Service dAstrophysique, Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France P. Bin´etruy APC Laboratory, Universit´e Paris-Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/IRFU, Observatoire de Paris, 10, rue Alice Domon et L´eonie Duquet, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France S. Covino INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via E. Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate (LC), Italy A. Fernandez-Soto Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, CSIC-Universidad Cantabria, Avenida de los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain (Dated: October 26, 2018) One of the experimental tests of Lorentz invariance violation is to measure the helicity dependence of the propagation velocity of photons originating in distant cosmological obejcts. Using a recent determination of the distance of the Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 041219A, for which a high degree of polarization is observed in the prompt emission, we are able to improve by 4 orders of magnitude the existing constraint on Lorentz invariance violation, arising from the phenomenon of vacuum birefringence. PACS numbers: 98.70.Rz,95.30.Sf,11.30.Cp,95.55.Ka I. INTRODUCTION On general grounds one expects that the two funda- mental theories of contemporary physics, the theory of General Relativity and the quantum theory in the form of the Standard Model of particle physics, can be unified at the Planck energy scale. This unification requires to quantize gravity, which leads to very fundamental diffi- culties. One is related with the energy of the fundamental vacumm state. Another one is the status of Lorentz in- variance: the fuzzy nature of space time in quantum grav- ity may lead to violations of this fundamental symmetry. For the last two decades theoretical studies and exper- imental searches of Lorentz Invariance Violation (LIV) have received a lot of attention [see e.g. the reviews by 1–3]. Possible consequences of LIV are energy and helic- ity dependent photon propagation velocities. The energy dependence can be constrained by recording the arrival times of photons of different energies emitted by distant objects at approximately the same time [4], e.g. during a Gamma-Ray Burst [5] or a flare of an Active Galactic Nucleus [6]. On the other hand, the helicity dependence can be constrained by measuring how the polarization di- ∗plaurent@cea.fr rection of an X-ray beam of cosmological origin changes as function of energy [7]. Recently, an upper limit on the helicity dependence of photon propagation has been set using INTEGRAL/SPI observations of the polarization of the Crab nebulae [8]. In this paper, we derive much stronger constraints from a polarization measurement of a Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB), a source at cosmological distance. To date only a few polarization measurements are available for GRBs. Coburn & Boggs [9] reported a high degree of polarization, Π = 80%±20%, for GRB 021206. However, successive reanalysis of the same data set could not confirm this claim, reporting a degree of polarization compatible with zero [10, 11]. Willis et al. [12] reported a strong polarization signal in GRB 930131 (Π > 35%) and GRB 960924 (Π > 50%), but this result could not be statistically constrained. GRB 041219A was detected by the INTEGRAL Burst Alert System (IBAS; Mereghetti 13), and is the longest and brightest GRB localized by INTEGRAL [14] to date [15]. McGlynn et al. [16], using the data of the INTEGRAL spectrometer [SPI; 17], re- ported a high degree of polarization of the prompt emis- sion (Π = 68 ± 29%) for the brightest part of this GRB. Also, G¨otz et al. [18] have performed a similar measure- ment, using this time the INTEGRAL/IBIS telescope, reporting variable polarization properties of the burst all along its duration. In this paper, we reuse these data in arXiv:1106.1068v1 [astro-ph.HE] 6 Jun 2011 2 order to measure the polarization in two energy bands and check for a shift in the polarization angle as a possi- ble effect of Lorentz Invariance Violation. In section II, we will present the INTEGRAL/IBIS ob- servations of polarization during the burst, and the re- cent measure of the burst distance we obtained thanks to far infrared observations of its host galaxy. In section III, we will derive constraints on LIV from these observations and we will conclude in section IV. II. OBSERVATIONS OF GRB041219A A. INTEGRAL/IBIS observations Thanks to its two position sensitive detector layers IS- GRI [19] (made of CdTe crystals and sensitive in the 15–1000 keV energy band), and PICsIT [20] (made of CsI bars and sensitive in the 200 keV–10 MeV energy band), IBIS can be used as a Compton polarimeter [21]. The concept behind a Compton polarimeter is the po- larization dependency of the differential cross section for Compton scattering

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