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Amelino-Camelia's Doubly Special Relativity vs Magueijo-Smolin Doubly Special Relativity

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Deformed Special Relativity · within family
Amelino-Camelia's Doubly Special Relativity
2002 · Speculative
Magueijo-Smolin Doubly Special Relativity
2002 · Speculative
Proposed
2002
2002
Key figures
Giovanni Amelino-Camelia
João Magueijo, Lee Smolin
In one sentence
The rules of special relativity can be rewritten so that all inertial observers agree on a Planck-scale length, without picking out any preferred frame.
A modified special relativity in which the Planck energy joins the speed of light as an invariant, while all inertial frames stay equivalent and Einstein's theory returns at low energies.
Predictions
  • All inertial observers agree on a Planck-scale length as well as on the speed of light, and no preferred frame exists
  • Energy, momentum and mass obey a deformed relation with Planck-length corrections, and every observer finds the same relation
  • In particular κ-Poincaré realizations, boosts saturate at a maximum momentum equal to the inverse Planck length
  • If the deformation makes photon speed depend on energy, high-energy gamma rays from distant bursts arrive at different times than low-energy ones
  • Every inertial observer measures the same Planck-scale energy, alongside the same speed of light
  • Physics agrees with special relativity at energies far below the invariant scale
  • In some versions of the 2003 generalization, elementary particles have a maximum momentum or energy and the speed of light varies with energy
  • Field theory and the equivalence principle are modified, with consequences for how the theory might embed in [[general relativity]]
Where it breaks
  • The 2002 paper proves consistency for certain types of deformation only, so the general case is still open.
  • Fermi's 2009 limit from GRB 090510 disfavours versions in which photon speed changes linearly with energy at the Planck scale.
  • The framework allows several deformations. Amelino-Camelia's own 2010 review describes DSR scenarios with and without a modified dispersion relation, so one null result rules out only some versions.
  • The 2003 generalization admits many examples with different maximum energies and photon speeds, so the framework alone does not fix one prediction.
  • Versions with a speed of light that changes at first order in energy over the Planck energy face the Fermi and LHAASO gamma-ray burst limits.
  • The 2002 paper only suggests a modified equivalence principle, so a full gravitational version of the model was left for later work.
Key unresolved problem
Which deformation nature uses, if any: the postulates allow several, and the version with a linear photon delay is already squeezed by gamma-ray burst data.
Choosing which of the many allowed non-linear boosts is physical, since each choice changes the maximum energy and how the speed of light behaves.
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