Deformed lorentz symmetry and high-energy astrophysics

by L. Gonzalez-Mestres (LAPP Annecy)

Thursday 17 Aug 2000, 14:00 → 14:15 Europe/Zurich

TH Auditorium (CERN)

It is widely agreed that Planck-scale physics is likely to imply Lorentz symmetry violation or, at least, a different ('deformed') version of Lorentz symmetry. However, such a Planck-scale phenomenology was disregarded until very recently under the prejudice that realistic tests were not feasible at attainable energies. In the last four years, several papers have refuted this a priori and shown that experiments devoted to high-energy cosmic rays or to gravitational waves may be able to test specific models of Lorentz symmetry violation (or 'deformation') generated at the Planck scale. It may even happen that superluminal particles ('superbradyons') be the fundamental building blocks of matter, in which case it is not excluded that some of them would be detectable. We present an updated review of patterns of Lorentz symmetry violation, focusing mainly on deformed Lorentz symmetry schemes and discussing in detail their phenomenological potentialities.