Stringent Tests of Lorentz Invariance Violation from LHAASO Observations of GRB 221009A

Stringent Tests of Lorentz Invariance Violation from LHAASO Observations of GRB 221009A

Very recently, the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) reported the observation of the very early TeV afterglow of the brightest-of-all-time GRB 221009A, recording the highest photon statistics in the TeV band ever from a gamma-ray burst. We use this unique observation to place stringent constraints on an energy dependence of the speed of light in vacuum, a manifestation of Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) predicted by some quantum gravity (QG) theories. Our results show that the 95% confidence level lower limits on the QG energy scales are $E_{mathrm{QG},1}>10$ times of the Planck energy $E_mathrm{Pl}$ for the linear, and $E_{mathrm{QG},2}>6times10^{-8}E_mathrm{Pl}$ for the quadratic LIV effects, respectively. Our limits on the quadratic LIV case improve previous best bounds by factors of 5–7.Very recently, the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) reported the observation of the very early TeV afterglow of the brightest-of-all-time GRB 221009A, recording the highest photon statistics in the TeV band ever from a gamma-ray burst. We use this unique observation to place stringent constraints on an energy dependence of the speed of light in vacuum, a manifestation of Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) predicted by some quantum gravity (QG) theories. Our results show that the 95% confidence level lower limits on the QG energy scales are $E_{mathrm{QG},1}>10$ times of the Planck energy $E_mathrm{Pl}$ for the linear, and $E_{mathrm{QG},2}>6times10^{-8}E_mathrm{Pl}$ for the quadratic LIV effects, respectively. Our limits on the quadratic LIV case improve previous best bounds by factors of 5–7.