Abstract

Quantum gravity phenomenology is the strategy towards quantum gravity where the priority is to make contact with experiments. Here I describe what I consider to be the best procedure to do quantum gravity phenomenology. The key step is to have a generic parametrization which allows one to perform self-consistency checks and to deal with many different experiments. As an example I describe the role that the Standard Model Extension has played when looking for Lorentz violation.

Highlights

  • Finding a fully consistent theory of quantum gravity is one of the biggest challenges in physics

  • The community that best implements the method described above revolves around the so-called Standard Model Extension (SME), which is a parametrization for violations of local Lorentz invariance [4, 5]

  • The SME is built in the effective field theory context. It has an action containing the conventional-physics action plus new terms that are not Lorentz invariant [6]. These new terms have a parameter for Lorentz violation, called an SME coefficient, which is coupled to conventional fields

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Summary

Introduction

Finding a fully consistent theory of quantum gravity is one of the biggest challenges in physics (for an introductory review see Ref. [1]). Finding a fully consistent theory of quantum gravity is one of the biggest challenges in physics One obstacle to build this theory is the lack of experimental data. The program generically known as quantum gravity phenomenology is comprised by several research strategies sharing the willingness to make contact with experiments [2]. Some mathematical expressions are given containing free parameters that must be constrained by comparing with experiments and, for which, a nonzero value can be considered to be evidence of new physics. I introduce the proposal as an algorithm whose flowchart is presented in figure 1. I first describe this algorithm; as an example, I discuss how it has been implemented in the case of Lorentz violation

The algorithm
An example
Self-consistency checks
Experimental results
Conclusions
Full Text
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