LHAASO discovery of highest-energy photons towards new physics

Ultrahigh-energy photons up to 1.4 peta-electronvolts have been observed by new cosmic-ray telescope in China -- a hint that Lorentz invariance might break down at the Planck-scale level.

Light Speed Variation with Brane/String-Inspired Space-Time Foam

Recently a series of studies on high energy gamma-ray burst~(GRB) photons suggest a light speed variation with linear energy dependence at the Lorentz violation scale of $3.6 times 10^{17}~mathrm{GeV}$, with subluminal propagation of high energy photons in cosmological space. We propose stringy space-time foam as a possible interpretation for this light speed variation. In such a string-inspired scenario, bosonic photon open-string travels textit{in vacuo} at an infraluminal speed with an energy dependence suppressed by a single power of the string mass scale, due to the foamy structure of space-time at small scales, as described by D-brane objects in string theory. We present a derivation of this deformed propagation speed of the photon field in the infrared (IR) regime. We show that the light speed variation, revealed in the previous studies on GRBs time-delay data, can be well described within such a string approach towards space-time foam. We also derive the value of the effective quantum-gravity mass in this framework, and give a qualitative study on the theory-dependent coefficients. We comment that stringent constraints on Lorentz violation in the photon sector from complementary astrophysical observations can also be explained and understood in the space-time foam context.

Reinterpretation of proton strangeness between ATLAS and CMS measurements

We reexamine the shapes of the strange quark parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the proton by means of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) analysis of {hera} deep inelastic scattering cross section measurement at DESY, and inclusive gauge boson production and $W$ boson production associated with a charm quark from LHC at CERN. We find that there is an overall agreement on the strange quark distributions obtained from CMS $W$ + charm and ATLAS $W/Z$ data at the parton momentum fraction range $x lesssim 10^{-2}$. Meanwhile, there is also a strong tension between these data towards large $x$. We find that this tension fades away if the ATLAS measurement of $W/Z$ production is analyzed together with the ATLAS $W$ + charm data. The $W/Z$ and $W$ + charm data both from ATLAS and CMS experiments agree that the proton strangeness is enhanced towards small momentum fraction $x$ and is smoothly suppressed at large $x$. Furthermore, a strong $x$ dependence of the strange-to-non-strange parton ratio $R_s(x,Q^2)$ is observed.

Pre-burst neutrinos of gamma-ray bursters accompanied by high-energy photons

Previous researches on high-energy neutrino events from gamma-ray bursters (GRBs) suggest a neutrino speed variation $v(E)=c(1pm E/E^{ u}_{mathrm{LV}})$ with ${E}^{ u}_{rm LV}=(6.4pm 1.5)times10^{17}~{ rm GeV}$, together with an intrinsic time difference ${Delta {t}_{rm in}=(-2.8pm 0.7)times10^2~{rm s}}$, which means that high-energy neutrinos come out about 300~s earlier than low-energy photons in the source reference system. Considering the possibility that pre-bursts of neutrinos may be accompanied by high-energy photons, in this work we search for high-energy photon events with earlier emission time from 100 to 1000~s before low-energy photons at source by analyzing Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST) data. We perform the searching of photon events with energies larger than 100~MeV, and find 14 events from 48 GRBs with known redshifts. Combining these events with a $1.07~rm{TeV}$ photon event observed by the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescopes (MAGIC), we suggest a pre-burst stage with a long duration period of several minutes of high energy neutrino emissions accompanied by high energy photons at the GRB source.

Pre-burst events of gamma-ray bursts with light speed variation

Previous researches on high-energy photon events from gamma-ray bursts~(GRBs) suggest a light speed variation $v(E)=c(1-E/E_{mathrm{LV}})$ with $E_{mathrm{LV}}=3.6times10^{17}~mathrm{ GeV}$, together with a pre-burst scenario that hight-energy photons come out about 10 seconds earlier than low-energy photons at the GRB source. However, in the Lorentz invariance violating scenario with an energy dependent light speed considered here, high-energy photons travel slower than low-energy photons due to the light speed variation, so that they are usually detected after low-energy photons in observed GRB data. Here we find four high-energy photon events which were observed earlier than low-energy photons from Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope~(FGST), and analysis on these photon events supports the pre-burst scenario of high energy photons from GRBs and the energy dependence of light speed listed above.

Ultrahigh-energy photons from LHAASO as probes of Lorentz symmetry violations

The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory~(LHAASO) is one of the most sensitive gamma-ray detector arrays currently operating at TeV and PeV energies. Recently the LHAASO experiment detected ultra-high-energy~(UHE; $E_{gamma}gtrsim 100~mathrm{TeV}$) photon emissions up to $1.4~mathrm{PeV}$ from twelve astrophysical gamma-ray sources. We point out that the detection of cosmic photons at such energies can constrain the photon self-decay motivated by superluminal Lorentz symmetry violation~(LV) to a higher level, thus can put strong constraints to certain LV frameworks. Meanwhile, we suggest that the current observation of the PeV-scale photon with LHAASO may provide hints to permit a subluminal type of Lorentz violation in the proximity of the Planckian regime, and may be compatible with the light speed variation at the scale of $3.6times 10^{17}~mathrm{GeV}$ recently suggested from gamma-ray burst~(GRB) time delays. We further propose detecting PeV photons coming from extragalactic sources with future experiments, based on LV-induced threshold anomalies of $e^{+}e^{-}$ pair-production, as a crucial test of subluminal Lorentz violation. We comment that these observations are consistent with a D-brane/string-inspired quantum-gravity framework, the space-time foam model.

Threshold anomalies of ultra-high energy cosmic photons due to Lorentz invariance violation

From special relativity, photon annihilation process HepProcess{{Pgg}{Pgg}{to}{Pep}{Pem}} prevents cosmic photons with energies above a threshold to propagate a long distance in cosmic space due to their annihilation with low energy cosmic background photons. However, modifications of the photon dispersion relation from Lorentz invariance violation~(LIV) can cause novel phenomena beyond special relativity to happen. In this paper, we point out that these phenomena include optical transparency, threshold reduction and reappearance of ultra-high energy photons in cosmic space. The recent observation of near and above PeV photon events by the LHAASO Collaboration reveals the necessity to consider the threshold anomalies. Future observations of above threshold photons from extragalactic sources can testify LIV properties of photons.

Light Speed Variation in a String Theory Model for Space-Time Foam

We revisit a supersymmetric string model for space-time foam, in which bosonic open-string states, such as photons, can possess quantum-gravity-induced velocity fluctuations in vacuum. We argue that the suggestion of light speed variation with lower bound from gamma-ray burst photon time delays can serve as a support for this string-inspired framework, through connecting the experimental finding with model predictions. We also derive the value of the effective quantum-gravity mass in this framework, and give a qualitative study on the model-dependent coefficients. Constraints from birefringent effects and/or photon decays, including the novel $gamma$-decay constraint obtained here from the latest Tibet AS$gamma$ near-PeV photon, are also found to be consistent with predictions in such a quantum-gravity scheme. Future observation that can testify further the theory is suggested.

Nucleon strangeness polarization from $Lambda/barLambda$ hyperon production in polarized proton-proton collision at RHIC

We calculate the inclusive production of a polarized $Lambda$ or $bar{Lambda}$ hyperon from the single longitudinally polarized proton and proton ($pp$) collision at RHIC. By comparing the data reported by the STAR Collaboration, we find that this process is sensitive to the polarization of strange and antistrange quarks of the proton in the experimental range. By introducing asymmetric coefficients with the minimization of $chi^2$, we further identify the asymmetry of the polarized strange-antistrange quarks in the proton sea and find that the first moment is $Delta s approx -0.025pm 0.019$ for strange quark and $Deltabar s approx -0.001pm 0.012$ for antistrange quark, with central values agreeing with the light-cone meson-baryon fluctuation model prediction, the recent lattice QCD determination of strangeness polarization and results from a global QCD analysis given by the Jefferson Lab Angular Momentum (JAM) Collaboration.

First digit law from Laplace transform

The occurrence of digits 1 through 9 as the leftmost nonzero digit of numbers from real-world sources is distributed unevenly according to an empirical law, known as Benfords law or the first digit law. It remains obscure why a variety of data sets generated from quite different dynamics obey this particular law. We perform a study of Benfords law from the application of the Laplace transform, and find that the logarithmic Laplace spectrum of the digital indicator function can be approximately taken as a constant. This particular constant, being exactly the Benford term, explains the prevalence of Benfords law. The slight variation from the Benford term leads to deviations from Benfords law for distributions which oscillate violently in the inverse Laplace space. We prove that the whole family of completely monotonic distributions can satisfy Benfords law within a small bound. Our study suggests that Benfords law originates from the way that we write numbers, thus should be taken as a basic mathematical knowledge.