Constraints on the photon charge based on observations of extragalactic sources

Abstract

Using modern high-resolution observations of extragalactic compact radio sources we obtain an estimate of the upper bound on a photon electric charge at the level $e_{\gamma }\lesssim 3\cdot 10^{-33}$ of elementary charge (assuming the photon charge to be energy independent). This is three orders of magnitude better than the limit obtained with radio pulsar timing. Also we set a limit on a photon charge in the gamma-ray band (energies about 0.1 MeV). In future the estimate made for extragalactic sources can be significantly improved.

Comments: 12 pages, no figures, accepted to Astronomy Letters