Revisiting Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Absorption in Cosmic Propagation under the Combined Effects of Axion-Like Particles and Lorentz Invariance Violation

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Main Authors: Qin, Longhua, Wang, Jiancheng, Yang, Chuyuan, Li, Huaizhen, Gao, Quangui, Ma, Ju, Wang, Ao, Na, Weiwei, Zhou, Ming, Yuan, Zunli, Gu, Chunxia, Long, Guangbo
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Published: 2025
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author Qin, Longhua
Wang, Jiancheng
Yang, Chuyuan
Li, Huaizhen
Gao, Quangui
Ma, Ju
Wang, Ao
Na, Weiwei
Zhou, Ming
Yuan, Zunli
Gu, Chunxia
Long, Guangbo
author_facet Qin, Longhua
Wang, Jiancheng
Yang, Chuyuan
Li, Huaizhen
Gao, Quangui
Ma, Ju
Wang, Ao
Na, Weiwei
Zhou, Ming
Yuan, Zunli
Gu, Chunxia
Long, Guangbo
contents Very-high-energy (VHE; $E \gtrsim 100$ GeV) gamma rays are expected to experience strong attenuation during cosmological propagation due to electron-positron pair production on the extragalactic background light (EBL). Recent observations of GRB 221009A (z = 0.151), including photons up to $\sim 18$ detected by LHAASO and a $\sim 300\ \mathrm{TeV}$ event reported by Carpet-3, suggest a higher-than-expected transparency of the Universe at extreme energies. These observations cannot be explained by standard EBL absorption alone; moreover, neither Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) nor photon-axion-like particle (ALP) oscillations, when considered in isolation, appear sufficient to account for the survival of such photons over cosmological distances. In this work, we propose a joint propagation scenario that incorporates photon-ALP mixing in astrophysical magnetic fields together with subluminal quadratic LIV corrections to the $γγ$ pair-production threshold. Applying this framework to the broadband gamma-ray spectrum of GRB 221009A, we show that ALPs with coupling ($g_{aγ} = 1.685 \times 10^{-10}\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ ) and mass ($m_a = 9.545 \times 10^{-8}\mathrm{eV}$), combined with a quadratic LIV energy scale ($E_{\rm LIV,2} = 1.30 \times 10^{-7} E_{\rm Pl}$) adopted from the literature, can significantly enhance the photon survival probability in the energy range (10\text{-}300) TeV. The resulting enhancement exceeds that obtained from either ALP mixing or LIV effects alone. These results indicate that a combined ALP-LIV scenario may provide a viable interpretation of the extreme-energy gamma-ray observations of GRB 221009A and highlight the potential of VHE gamma-ray measurements as probes of physics beyond the Standard Model.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_23113
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Revisiting Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Absorption in Cosmic Propagation under the Combined Effects of Axion-Like Particles and Lorentz Invariance Violation
Qin, Longhua
Wang, Jiancheng
Yang, Chuyuan
Li, Huaizhen
Gao, Quangui
Ma, Ju
Wang, Ao
Na, Weiwei
Zhou, Ming
Yuan, Zunli
Gu, Chunxia
Long, Guangbo
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Very-high-energy (VHE; $E \gtrsim 100$ GeV) gamma rays are expected to experience strong attenuation during cosmological propagation due to electron-positron pair production on the extragalactic background light (EBL). Recent observations of GRB 221009A (z = 0.151), including photons up to $\sim 18$ detected by LHAASO and a $\sim 300\ \mathrm{TeV}$ event reported by Carpet-3, suggest a higher-than-expected transparency of the Universe at extreme energies. These observations cannot be explained by standard EBL absorption alone; moreover, neither Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) nor photon-axion-like particle (ALP) oscillations, when considered in isolation, appear sufficient to account for the survival of such photons over cosmological distances. In this work, we propose a joint propagation scenario that incorporates photon-ALP mixing in astrophysical magnetic fields together with subluminal quadratic LIV corrections to the $γγ$ pair-production threshold. Applying this framework to the broadband gamma-ray spectrum of GRB 221009A, we show that ALPs with coupling ($g_{aγ} = 1.685 \times 10^{-10}\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ ) and mass ($m_a = 9.545 \times 10^{-8}\mathrm{eV}$), combined with a quadratic LIV energy scale ($E_{\rm LIV,2} = 1.30 \times 10^{-7} E_{\rm Pl}$) adopted from the literature, can significantly enhance the photon survival probability in the energy range (10\text{-}300) TeV. The resulting enhancement exceeds that obtained from either ALP mixing or LIV effects alone. These results indicate that a combined ALP-LIV scenario may provide a viable interpretation of the extreme-energy gamma-ray observations of GRB 221009A and highlight the potential of VHE gamma-ray measurements as probes of physics beyond the Standard Model.
title Revisiting Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Absorption in Cosmic Propagation under the Combined Effects of Axion-Like Particles and Lorentz Invariance Violation
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.23113