Multimessenger tests of Einstein's weak equivalence principle and Lorentz invariance with a high-energy neutrino from a flaring blazar

Abstract

The detection of the high-energy (∼290 TeV) neutrino coincident with the flaring blazar TXS 0506+056, the first and only 3σ neutrino-source association to date, provides new, multimessenger tests of the weak equivalence principle (WEP) and Lorentz invariance. Assuming that the flight time difference between the TeV neutrino and gamma-ray photons from the blazar flare is mainly caused by the gravitational potential of the Laniakea supercluster of galaxies, we show that the deviation from the WEP for neutrinos and photons is conservatively constrained to have an accuracy of 10−6–10−7, which is 3–4 orders of magnitude better than previous results placed by MeV neutrinos from supernova 1987A. In addition, we demonstrate that the association of the TeV neutrino with the blazar flare sets limits on the energy scales of quantum gravity for both linear and quadratic violations of Lorentz invariance (LIV) to EQG,1>3.2×1015–3.7×1016 GeV and EQG,2>4.0×1010–1.4×1011 GeV. These improve previous limits on both linear and quadratic LIV energy scales in neutrino propagation by 5–7 orders of magnitude.