Searching Lorentz invariance violation from cosmic photon attenuation

Abstract

AbstractLorentz invariance violation (LIV) can change the threshold behavior predicted by special relativity and cause threshold anomalies which affect the propagation of cosmic photons. In this work, we focus on the threshold anomaly effect on cosmic photon attenuations by extragalactic background light (EBL) and discuss how to identify LIV from observations of very high energy (VHE) photons propagated from long distance in the universe. We point out that the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), one of the most sensitive gamma-ray detector arrays currently operating at TeV and PeV energies, is an ideal facility for performing such LIV searching. We apply the proposed strategy to discuss the newly observed gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A to demonstrate the predictive ability of our suggestions.