Eur. Phys. J. C (2012) 72: 2044
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-012-2044-8

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Background-dependent Lorentz violation: natural solutions to the theoretical challenges of the superluminal neutrino propagation

¹ Chinese Academy of Sciences, Key Laboratory of Frontiers in Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Beijing, 100190, P.R. China
² George P. and Cynthia W. Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA
³ Astroparticle Physics Group, Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), Mitchell Campus, Woodlands, TX, 77381, USA
⁴ Division of Natural Sciences, Academy of Athens, 28 Panepistimiou Avenue, Athens, 10679, Greece

^* e-mail: tli@itp.ac.cn

Received: 27 January 2012
Revised: 27 May 2012
Published online: 14 June 2012

Abstract

To explain both the possible superluminal neutrino propagation and all the known phenomenological constraints/observations on Lorentz violation, the Background-Dependent Lorentz Violation (BDLV) has been proposed. We study the BDLV in a model-independent way. Assuming that the Lorentz violation on the Earth is much larger than those on the interstellar scale, we automatically escape all the astrophysical constraints on Lorentz violation. For the BDLV from the effective field theory, we present a simple model and discuss the possible solutions to the theoretical challenges of the superluminal neutrino propagation such as the Bremsstrahlung effects for muon neutrinos and the pion decays. Also, we address the Lorentz violation constraints from the LEP and KamLAMD experiments. For the BDLV from the Type IIB string theory with D3-branes and D7-branes, we point out that the D3-branes are flavour blind, and all the SM particles are the conventional particles as in the traditional SM when they do not interact with the D3-branes. Thus, we not only can naturally avoid all the known phenomenological constraints on Lorentz violation, but also can naturally explain all the theoretical challenges. Interestingly, the energy-dependent photon velocities may be tested at the experiments.