On the spontaneous breaking of Lorentz invariance

Abstract

We show that estimates of the Lorentz symmetry violation extracted from ultra-high energy cosmic rays beyond the GZK cut-off set bounds on the parameters of a Lorentz-violating extension of the Standard Model. Moreover, we argue that correlated measurements of the difference in the arrival time of gamma-ray photons and neutrinos emitted from Active Galactic Nuclei or Gamma-Ray Bursts may provide a signature for a possible violation of the Lorentz symmetry. We find that this time delay is energy independent, but that it has a dependence on the chirality of the particles involved.

Comments: 9 pages, Latex (requires mprocl.sty file available at http://www.aei-potsdam.mpg.de/~cavaglia/qg99/proceedings.html). Invited talk delivered at the Third Meeting on Constrained Dynamics and Quantum Gravity, Villasimius, Sardinia, September 1999