Quantum Gravity - Revealed By Gamma Ray Bursts?

Gamma-ray bursts - the grand and mysterious flashes of high energy light now as probes for the most ranges from the earliest moments of the universe and time - may be another secret to reveal: quantum gravity.

Not yet observed in nature, the quantum gravity is the long sought missing link between Einstein's general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, the two pillars of modern physics inappropriate. NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), scheduled for a 2005 start may be able to identify for the first time the effects of quantum gravity in the speed of gamma-ray burst photons, after two NASA scientists.

The main message is that the gamma-ray bursts that GLAST are discovered and removed sufficiently strong enough to see the highest of the high energy photons travel a little slower than at lower-energy photons, weighted by the effect of quantum gravity.
Drs Jay Norris and Jerry Bonnell of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the math. The two observed, astronomers said that only time will tell whether this delay GLAST is the time to quantum gravity (and the figures, go with it) is still very speculative.

A gamma-ray burst is the largest outpouring of energy the universe has ever seen, apart from the "Big Bang". Each burst is as powerful as a billion trillion suns and satellite recognize burst or two per day. As usual the burst, but nobody is sure about what it means. They are only in the gamma-ray wave range, although their afterglows abate slowly into the x-ray and optical realm.
Gamma-ray bursts were discovered in the late 1960s, decades after the concepts of the general theory of relativity and quantum physics spiced the first lexicon.

General Relativity accounts for gravity, the force that acts in large scales. Quantum mechanics, part of the standard model, describes the behavior of the other three fundamental forces: electromagnetism and weak forces (in radioactive decay) and strong forces (holding subatomic particles together). These three forces act on small scales, and each has a particle, which transmits power: namely, photons (electromagnetism), gluons (for strong forces) and W and Z particles (for strong forces).

The hypothesis that the particles would provide for the force of gravity, the graviton. Well, a graviton is not something that you're looking for in a huge particle accelerator, as opposed to a Higgs boson or other exotic particles. The scientists are looking for, rather than the impact of Graviton, as in gravitational waves rocking chair objects in space or in the case of the Gamma-Ray Burst, gravitons slowing of a passing photon.
In quantum mechanics, the vacuum of space is no vacuum, but it is on the spot by virtual particles, such as the graviton. Light through this field of virtual particles is broken, just as it is, if the water or through any medium.

The Graviton that the nature of gravitational force, would interact with (or slow down) the particles with a greater gravitational potential. With mass directly proportional to the energy, as in E = mc2, higher energy photons have a greater gravitational potential than to lower energy photons - as if they weigh more.

The highest energy photons would therefore travel through space more slowly than lower-energy photons. (This does not violate the constancy of the speed of light, for light travels in the same speed only in an absolute vacuum.) To demonstrate the very slight difference in the photons speed, you need a very distant source emitting very high energy photons: that is , The gamma ray burst.

Last year, Dr. Bradley Schaefer of the University of Texas tested the consistency of the speed of light to great accuracy, with both high-and low-photons, and found no change in time. The photons in the main proceedings in question Norris and Bonnell analysis, though, are of higher energy than anything previously studied.

When it comes to burst photons, GLAST will determine the highest of the high. The instrument would be able to detect photons of gamma-ray bursts with energy thousands of times higher than those in Burst acknowledged that the missions before GLAST, as HETE-2 and SWIFT. Also, with the source of the gamma ray burst probably billions of light years away, GLAST might be a delay in photon arrival times as they travel through the endless soup of gravitons.
Such a scenario would be a strong evidence for the presence of the graviton and thus, the concept of quantum gravity. Of course, the quantum gravity is as speculative as it is, obviously delays in photons speed might have some astronomers zuzubilligen that this is the dynamics of the explosion and not the medium of space. However, the discovery of the LAG times is a deep revelation.

Several groups of scientists working on the issue of quantum gravity and how to recognize. A team led by Dr. John Ellis of CERN is looking at low-energy gamma-ray bursts, Dr. Karl Mannheim university observatory and his group are seeking high energy photons detected earlier burst, and a group headed by Dr .. TC Weekes the Whipple Observatory in Arizona is pouring through the data of the highest detected gamma-ray photons, from relatively nearby galaxies with active black holes.

Eindeutigen evidence of quantum gravity would ultimately open up new avenues for physicists' ultimate goal the unification of all four fundamental forces in the framework of a Grand Unified Theory - a theory states that the behavior of all matter and energy in all situations.