Lorentz and CPT breaking in gamma-ray burst neutrinos from string theory

Abstract

Abstract Previous studies on high-energy gamma-ray burst neutrinos from IceCube suggest a neutrino speed variation at the Lorentz violation (LV) scale of ~6.4 × 1017 GeV, with opposite velocity variances between neutrinos and antineutrinos. Within a spacetime foam model, inspired by string theory, we develop an approach to describe the suggested neutrino/antineutrino propagation properties with both Lorentz invariance and CPT symmetry breaking. A threshold analysis on the bremsstrahlung of electron-positron pair (ν → νee+) for the superluminal (anti)neutrino is performed. We find that, due to the energy violation caused by the quantum foam, such reaction may be restricted to occur at sufficient high energies and could even be kinematically forbidden. Constraints on neutrino LV from vacuum ee+ pair emission are naturally avoided. Future experiments are appealed to test further the CPT violation of cosmic neutrinos and/or neutrino superluminality.