• Open Access

Superluminal propagation from IR physics

Asuka Ito and Teruaki Suyama
Phys. Rev. D 107, 016011 – Published 20 January 2023

Abstract

One may believe that front velocities of waves in a given theory coincide with the UV limit of phase velocities for any dispersion relations. This implies that IR physics is irrelevant to the discussion of propagation speed of waves. We first consider a theory that contains higher spatial derivatives in the wave equation and prove that front velocities coincide with the UV limit of phase velocities, at least, if parity is conserved. However, we also show that front velocities do not coincide with the UV limit of phase velocities in general dispersion relations. We explicitly give several examples in which front velocities are superluminal owing to an IR or intermediate energy scale property of dispersion relations even if the UV limit of phase velocities is luminal. Our finding conveys the important caution that not only UV physics but also IR physics can be significant to superluminality.

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  • Received 7 November 2022
  • Accepted 5 January 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.107.016011

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Particles & Fields

Authors & Affiliations

Asuka Ito*

  • International Center for Quantum-field Measurement Systems for Studies of the Universe and Particles (QUP), KEK, Tsukuba 305-0801, Japan and Theory Center, Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies, KEK, Tsukuba 305-0801, Japan

Teruaki Suyama

  • Department of Physics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan

  • *asuka.ito@kek.jp
  • suyama.t.ab@m.titech.ac.jp

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Issue

Vol. 107, Iss. 1 — 1 January 2023

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