Abstract

The ‘relativity with a preferred frame’, designed to reconcile the relativity principle with the existence of the cosmological preferred frame, incorporates the preferred frame at the level of special relativity (SR) while retaining the fundamental spacetime symmetry, which, in the standard SR, manifests itself as Lorentz invariance. In this paper, the processes, accompanying the propagation of cosmic rays and gamma rays through the background radiation from distant sources to Earth, are considered on the basis of particle dynamics and electromagnetic field dynamics developed within the framework of the ‘relativity with a preferred frame’. Applying the theory to the photopion-production and pair-production processes shows that the modified particle dynamics and electrodynamics lead to measurable signatures in the observed cosmic and gamma-ray spectra which can provide an interpretation of some puzzling features found in the observational data. Other processes responsible for gamma-ray attenuation are considered. It is found, in particular, that electromagnetic cascades, developing on cosmic microwave background and extragalactic background light, may be reduced or suppressed due to the preferred frame effects which should influence the shape of the very high-energy gamma-ray spectra. Other possible observational consequences of the theory, such as the birefringence of light propagating in vacuo and dispersion, are discussed.

Highlights

  • Lorentz symmetry is arguably the most fundamental symmetry of physics, at least in its modern conception

  • In the electrodynamics of the standard special relativity, the electric and magnetic fields intensities are defined on the basis of equations of motion of a charged particle obtained from the Lagrange equations

  • The extension is not as straightforward as the extension to the free particle dynamics developed in [28], both rely on the existence of the modified spacetime symmetry

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Summary

Introduction

Lorentz symmetry is arguably the most fundamental symmetry of physics, at least in its modern conception. Universality of the light propagation, and group property, it is the spacetime symmetry expressed by the existence of a combination invariant under the transformations (a counterpart of the interval of the standard SR)—only the form of the invariant combination is modified. Such a ’modified spacetime symmetry’ paves the way to extensions of the kinematics of the ‘relativity with a preferred frame’ to free-particle dynamics, general relativity, and electromagnetic field theory. All equations of the theory contain only one universal parameter b

Free Particle Dynamics
Electromagnetic Field Dynamics
Electromagnetic Waves
Attenuation Processes
The Preferred Frame Effects
Astrophysical Tests for Vacuum Dispersion and Vacuum Birefringence
Findings
Discussion
Full Text
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