A constraint on canonical quantum gravity?

Igor G. Mitrofanov ()
Additional contact information
Igor G. Mitrofanov: Space Research Institute

Nature, 2003, vol. 426, issue 6963, 139-139

Abstract: Abstract Gamma rays from the γ-ray burst (GRB) 021206 have been reported to be strongly linearly polarized1, with the estimated degree of polarization (80 ± 20%) being close to the absolute maximum of 100% — affording us the opportunity to constrain models of quantum gravity, which has had 1010 years to act on the photons as they travelled towards us. Here I show that if the effects of quantum gravity are linearly proportional to the ratio of the photon energy to the characteristic scale energy of quantum gravity, then the polarization of photons with energies of about 0.1 MeV should be completely random, contrary to what is observed. I conclude that, should the polarization measurement be confirmed, quantum gravity effects act with a power that is greater than linearity, or that loop quantum gravity is not viable. Compared with previous methods and results (see ref. 2, for example), testing of the linear polarization of cosmic γ-ray bursts may substantially extend the observational window on the theory of quantum gravity.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/426139a Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:426:y:2003:i:6963:d:10.1038_426139a

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/426139a

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().