{
  "id": "1803.07298",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2018-03-20T08:43:30.000Z",
  "updated": "2018-03-20T08:43:30.000Z",
  "title": "Robust Limits on Photon Mass from Statistical Samples of Extragalactic Radio Pulsars",
  "authors": [
    "Jun-Jie Wei",
    "Xue-Feng Wu"
  ],
  "comment": "6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.HE",
    "astro-ph.CO",
    "gr-qc",
    "hep-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "The photon zero-mass hypothesis has been investigated for a long time using the frequency-dependent time delays of radio emissions from astrophysical sources. However, the search for a rest mass of the photon has been hindered by the similarity between the frequency-dependent dispersions due to the plasma and nonzero photon mass effects. Here we propose a new method through which the degeneracy of these two effects can be alleviated, by fitting a combination of the dispersion measures of radio sources. This allows us to simultaneously establish a robust limit on the photon mass. Using the observed dispersion measures from two statistical samples of extragalactic pulsars, we show that at the 68\\% confidence level, the constraints on the photon mass can be as low as $m_{\\gamma}\\leq1.5\\times10^{-48}~\\rm kg\\simeq8.4\\times10^{-13}~{\\rm eV}/c^{2}$ for the sample of 22 radio pulsars in the Large Magellanic Cloud and $m_{\\gamma}\\leq1.6\\times10^{-48}~\\rm kg\\simeq8.8\\times10^{-13} {\\rm eV}/c^{2}$ for the other sample of 5 radio pulsars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which are a factor of $\\sim1$ better than that obtained by a single extragalactic pulsar. Furthermore, the method presented here can also be used when more fast radio bursts with known redshifts are detected in the future.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2018-03-20T08:43:30.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "extragalactic radio pulsars",
      "robust limit",
      "statistical samples",
      "nonzero photon mass effects",
      "dispersion measures"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 6,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}