Article
The Emergence of a universal limiting speed
Physical Review D
(2011)
Abstract
We display several examples of how fields with different limiting velocities (the ”speed of light”)
at a high energy scale can nevertheless have a common limiting velocity at low energies due to the
effects of interactions. We evaluate the interplay of the velocities through the self-energy diagrams
and use the renormalization group to evolve the system to low energy. The differences normally
vanish only logarithmically, so that an exponentially large energy trajectory is required in order to
satisfy experimental constraints. However, we also display a model in which the running is power-
law, which could be more phenomenologically useful. The largest velocity difference should be in
system with the weakest interaction, which suggests that the study of the speed of gravitational
waves would be the most stringent test of this phenomenon.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2011
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevD.83.105027
Citation Information
John Donoghue and Mohamed M. Anber. "The Emergence of a universal limiting speed" Physical Review D Vol. 83 Iss. 105027 (2011) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/john_donoghue/160/