A limit on the variation of the speed of light arising from quantum gravity effects

Abdo, A. A.; Ackermann, M.; Ajello, M.; Asano, K.; Atwood, W. B.; Axelsson, M.; Baldini, L.; Ballet, J.; Barbiellini, G.; Baring, M. G.; Bastieri, D.; Bechtol, K.; Bellazzini, R.; Berenji, B.; Bhat, P. N.; Bissaldi, E.; Bloom, E. D.; Bonamente, E.; Bonnell, J.; Borgland, A. W.; Bouvier, A.; Bregeon, J.; Brez, A.; Briggs, M. S.; Brigida, M.; Bruel, P.; Burgess, J. M.; Burnett, T. H.; Caliandro, G. A.; Cameron, R. A.; Caraveo, P. A.; Casandjian, J. M.; Cecchi, C.; Celik, Oe; Chaplin, V.; Charles, E.; Cheung, C. C.; Chiang, J.; Ciprini, S.; Claus, R.; Cohen-Tanugi, J.; Cominsky, L. R.; Connaughton, V.; Conrad, J.; Cutini, S.; Dermer, C. D.; de Angelis, A.; de Palma, F; Digel, S. W.; Dingus, B. L.; do Couto e Silva, E.; Drell, P. S.; Dubois, R.; Dumora, D.; Farnier, C.; Favuzzi, C.; Fegan, S. J.; Finke, J.; Fishman, G.; Focke, W. B.; Foschini, L.; Fukazawa, Y.; Funk, S.; Fusco, P.; Gargano, F.; Gasparrini, D.; Gehrels, N.; Germani, S.; Gibby, L.; Giebels, B.; Giglietto, N.; Giordano, F.; Glanzman, T.; Godfrey, G.; Granot, J.; Greiner, J.; Grenier, I. A.; Grondin, M. -H.; Grove, J. E.; Grupe, D.; Guillemot, L.; Guiriec, S.; Hanabata, Y.; Harding, A. K.; Hayashida, M.; Hays, E.; Hoversten, E. A.; Hughes, R. E.; Johannesson, G.; Johnson, A. S.; Johnson, R. P.; Johnson, W. N.; Kamae, T.; Katagiri, H.; Kataoka, J.; Kawai, N.; Kerr, M.; Kippen, R. M.; Knoedlseder, J.; Kocevski, D.; Kouveliotou, C.; Kuehn, F.; Kuss, M.; Lande, J.; Latronico, L.; Lemoine-Goumard, M.; Longo, F.; Loparco, F.; Lott, B.; Lovellette, M. N.; Lubrano, P.; Madejski, G. M.; Makeev, A.; Mazziotta, M. N.; Mcbreen, S.; Mcenery, J. E.; Mcglynn, S.; Meszaros, P.; Meurer, C.; Michelson, P. F.; Mitthumsiri, W.; Mizuno, T.; Moiseev, A. A.; Monte, C.; Monzani, M. E.; Moretti, E.; Morselli, A.; Moskalenko, I. V.; Murgia, S.; Nakamori, T.; Nolan, P. L.; Norris, J. P.; Nuss, E.; Ohno, M.; Ohsugi, T.; Omodei, N.; Orlando, E.; Ormes, J. F.; Ozaki, M.; Paciesas, W. S.; Paneque, D.; Panetta, J. H.; Parent, D.; Pelassa, V.; Pepe, M.; Pesce-Rollins, M.; Petrosian, V.; Piron, F.; Porter, T. A.; Preece, R.; Raino, S.; Ramirez-Ruiz, E.; Rando, R.; Razzano, M.; Razzaque, S.; Reimer, A.; Reimer, O.; Reposeur, T.; Ritz, S.; Rochester, L. S.; Rodriguez, A. Y.; Roth, M.; Ryde, F.; Sadrozinski, H. F. -W.; Sanchez, D.; Sander, A.; Saz, Parkinson P. M.; Scargle, J. D.; Schalk, T. L.; Sgro, C.; Siskind, E. J.; Smith, D. A.; Smith, P. D.; Spandre, G.; Spinelli, P.; Stamatikos, M.; Stecker, F. W.; Strickman, M. S.; Suson, D. J.; Tajima, H.; Takahashi, H.; Takahashi, T.; Tanaka, T.; Thayer, J. B.; Thayer, J. G.; Thompson, D. J.; Tibaldo, L.; Toma, K.; Torres, D. F.; Tosti, G.; Troja, E.; Uchiyama, Y.; Uehara, T.; Usher, T. L.; van der Horst, A. J.; Vasileiou, V.; Vilchez, N.; Vitale, V.; von Kienlin, A.; Waite, A. P.; Wang, P.; Wilson-Hodge, C.; Winer, B. L.; Wood, K. S.; X. F., Wu; Yamazaki, R.; Ylinen, T.; Ziegler, M.

doi:10.1038/nature08574

A cornerstone of Einstein's special relativity is Lorentz invariance-the postulate that all observers measure exactly the same speed of light in vacuum, independent of photon-energy. While special relativity assumes that there is no fundamental length-scale associated with such invariance, there is a fundamental scale (the Planck scale, l(Planck) approximate to 1.62 x 10(-33) cm or E(Planck) = M(Planck)c(2) approximate to 1.22 x 10(19) GeV), at which quantum effects are expected to strongly affect the nature of space-time. There is great interest in the (not yet validated) idea that Lorentz invariance might break near the Planck scale. A key test of such violation of Lorentz invariance is a possible variation of photon speed with energy(1-7). Even a tiny variation in photon speed, when accumulated over cosmological light-travel times, may be revealed by observing sharp features in gamma-ray burst (GRB) light-curves(2). Here we report the detection of emission up to similar to 31GeV from the distant and short GRB090510. We find no evidence for the violation of Lorentz invariance, and place a lower limit of 1.2E(Planck) on the scale of a linear energy dependence (or an inverse wavelength dependence), subject to reasonable assumptions about the emission (equivalently we have an upper limit of l(Planck)/1.2 on the length scale of the effect). Our results disfavour quantum-gravity theories(3,6,7) in which the quantum nature of space-time on a very small scale linearly alters the speed of light.