Speaker
Nikolaos Mavromatos
Description
In the first part of the talk I will review the status of
searches of Quantum Gravity (QG) models that entail
non trivial ``optical'' properties of the vacuum, such as
a refractive index and/or birefringence, which may be
consequences of quantum fluctuating space times during
the propagation of high energy cosmic photons from
distant astrophysical sources. I will be careful in
explaining why recent arrival-time-of-photons
measurements from FERMI LAT do not necessarily
exclude QG models with induced modifications in the
photon's dispersion relation suppressed by a single
power of Planck mass.
In the second part of the lecture, I will discuss other
potential aspects of quantum gravity models, such as
Lorentz and CPT Violations, and/or decoherence effects
on matter, which do not necessarily lead to the
aforementioned energy dependent effective speed of
light in the QG medium. In the framework of CPT
Violation (CPTV), I will discuss prospects for constraining
QG-induced CPTV in entangled states of neutral mesons
in future facilities such as DA$Phi$NE 2, as well as
prospects for precision measurements in atomic
transitions, and comparison of properties of atoms vs
those of anti-atoms, especially in view of the recently
available antimatter ``factories''. I will finish the talk
with some discussion on using neutrinos from intense
astrophysical sources, such as supernovae, as probes of
such Lorentz and/or CPT Violating and Decoherening
models of QG.
