Lorentz violation from gamma-ray burst neutrinos

• Published in: Communications physics Vol. 1; no. 1
• Main Authors: Huang, Yanqi, Ma, Bo-Qiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 03.10.2018; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/33/34/864; 639/766/419/866; Antiparticles; Gamma ray bursts; Gamma rays; Neutrinos; Photons; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Regularity; Relativistic particles
• ISSN: 2399-3650; 2399-3650
• DOI: 10.1038/s42005-018-0061-0

The Lorentz violation (LV) effect of ultra-relativistic particles can be tested by gamma-ray burst (GRB) neutrinos and photons. The IceCube Collaboration has observed plenty of ultra-high energy neutrinos, including four PeV scale neutrinos. Recent studies suggested a possible energy dependent speed variation of GRB neutrinos in a similar way to that of GRB photons. Here we find that all four PeV neutrinos with associated GRB candidates can satisfy a regularity found from TeV neutrinos about a linear form correlation between the observed time difference and the LV factor. Such regularity indicates a Lorentz violation scale E LV  = (6.5 ± 0.4) × 10 17  GeV, which is comparable with that determined by GRB photons. We also suggest that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos can be superluminal and subluminal respectively due to opposite signs of LV correction. Astrophysical neutrinos are ideal to probe the high energy universe. By using observations from the IceCube Observatory, the authors demonstrate that ultrahigh energy neutrinos are associated with gamma-ray bursts and explain their energy dependent speed variation as due to Lorentz violation.