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http://doc.cern.ch//archive/electronic/gr-qc/0402/0402009.pdf
A perspective on Quantum Gravity Phenomenology1
Giovanni Amelino-Camelia
aDipart. Fisica, Univ. Roma \La Sapienza” and INFN Sez. Roma1
P.le Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy
ABSTRACT
I give a brief overview of some Quantum-Gravity-Phenomenology research lines, focusing on studies of cosmic rays and gamma-ray bursts that concern the fate of Lorentz symmetry in quantum spacetime. I also stress that the most valuable phenomenological analyses should not mix too many conjectured new features of quantum spacetime, and from this perspective it appears that it should be dicult to obtain reliable guidance on the quantum-gravity
problem from the analysis of synchrotron radiation from the Crab nebula and from the analysis of phase coherence of light from extragalactic sources. Forthcoming observatories of ultra-high-energy neutrinos should provide several opportunities for clean tests of some simple hypothesis for the short-distance structure of spacetime. In particular, these neutrino studies, and some related cosmic-ray studies, should provide access to the regime E> mEp.
1 Quantum Gravity Phenomenology
Quantum-gravity research used to be completely detached from experiments. The horrifying smallness of the expected quantum-gravity eects, due to the overall suppression by powers
of the ratio of the Planck length (Lp ~ 10-35m) versus the characteristic wavelength of the particles involved in the process, had led to the conviction that experiments could never
possibly help. But recently there has been a sharp change in the attitude of a signi cant fraction of the quantum-gravity community. This is reflected also by the tone of recent
quantum-gravity reviews (see, e.g., Refs. [[1,2,3,4])]as compared to the tone of quantum gravity reviews published up to the mid 1990s (see, e.g., Ref. [[5, 6]]).
The fact that the smallness of an eect does not necessarily imply that it cannot be studied experimentally is not actually a new idea. There are several examples in physics, and even
remaining in the context of fundamental physics there is the noteworthy example of studies of the prediction of proton decay within certain granduni ed theories of particle physics.
The predicted proton-decay probability is really small, suppressed by the fourth power of the ratio between the mass of the proton and the granduni cation scale [mproton=Egut]4 ~ 10-64 ,
but in spite of this truly horrifying suppression, with a simple idea we have managed to acquire an excellent sensitivity to the new eect. The proton lifetime predicted by granduni ed theories is of order 1039s and \quite a few” generations of physicists should invest their
----------------------------------------------------------------------
i thought this might be interesting, some may have read it already
sorry about the quality of reproduction.
A perspective on Quantum Gravity Phenomenology1
Giovanni Amelino-Camelia
aDipart. Fisica, Univ. Roma \La Sapienza” and INFN Sez. Roma1
P.le Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy
ABSTRACT
I give a brief overview of some Quantum-Gravity-Phenomenology research lines, focusing on studies of cosmic rays and gamma-ray bursts that concern the fate of Lorentz symmetry in quantum spacetime. I also stress that the most valuable phenomenological analyses should not mix too many conjectured new features of quantum spacetime, and from this perspective it appears that it should be dicult to obtain reliable guidance on the quantum-gravity
problem from the analysis of synchrotron radiation from the Crab nebula and from the analysis of phase coherence of light from extragalactic sources. Forthcoming observatories of ultra-high-energy neutrinos should provide several opportunities for clean tests of some simple hypothesis for the short-distance structure of spacetime. In particular, these neutrino studies, and some related cosmic-ray studies, should provide access to the regime E> mEp.
1 Quantum Gravity Phenomenology
Quantum-gravity research used to be completely detached from experiments. The horrifying smallness of the expected quantum-gravity eects, due to the overall suppression by powers
of the ratio of the Planck length (Lp ~ 10-35m) versus the characteristic wavelength of the particles involved in the process, had led to the conviction that experiments could never
possibly help. But recently there has been a sharp change in the attitude of a signi cant fraction of the quantum-gravity community. This is reflected also by the tone of recent
quantum-gravity reviews (see, e.g., Refs. [[1,2,3,4])]as compared to the tone of quantum gravity reviews published up to the mid 1990s (see, e.g., Ref. [[5, 6]]).
The fact that the smallness of an eect does not necessarily imply that it cannot be studied experimentally is not actually a new idea. There are several examples in physics, and even
remaining in the context of fundamental physics there is the noteworthy example of studies of the prediction of proton decay within certain granduni ed theories of particle physics.
The predicted proton-decay probability is really small, suppressed by the fourth power of the ratio between the mass of the proton and the granduni cation scale [mproton=Egut]4 ~ 10-64 ,
but in spite of this truly horrifying suppression, with a simple idea we have managed to acquire an excellent sensitivity to the new eect. The proton lifetime predicted by granduni ed theories is of order 1039s and \quite a few” generations of physicists should invest their
----------------------------------------------------------------------
i thought this might be interesting, some may have read it already
sorry about the quality of reproduction.
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