Implications of gamma-ray photon measurements at the LHAASO on Lorentz symmetry *

Abstract

The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) has reported the measurement of photons with high energy up to 1.42 PeV from 12 gamma-ray sources. We are concerned with the implications of LHAASO data on the fate of Lorenz symmetry at such high energy level, thus we consider the interaction of the gamma ray with those photons in cosmic microwave background (CMB), and compute the optical depth, the mean free path as well as the survival probability for photons from all these gamma-ray sources. Employing the threshold value predicted by the standard special relativity, it is found that the lowest survival probability for observed gamma ray photons is about 0.60, which is a fairly high value and implies that abundant photons with energy above the threshold value may reach the Earth without Lorentz symmetry violation. We conclude that it is still far to argue that the Lorentz symmetry would be violated due to the present observations from LHAASO. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Article funded by SCOAP3 and published under licence by Chinese Physical Society and the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science and the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and IOP Publishing Ltd.

Gamma-ray emission from molecular clouds illuminated by local young massive stellar clusters and detection prospects with current and next generation instruments

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