What are the non-obvious corollaries of Lorentz invariance?

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
4 replies · 2K views
ohwilleke
Gold Member
Messages
2,695
Reaction score
1,669
I've commonly heard it said that Lorentz invariance is equivalent to saying that special relativity is obeyed, although I also recall discussions arguing that this is not precisely and technically correct, although the two concepts heavily overlap.

I also understand that Lorentz invariance has a number of non-obvious corollaries that could be used either as alternative tests of Lorentz invariance violation or alternatively could be used assuming Lorentz invariance to make conclusions about physical systems. But, I don't recall what any of those non-obvious corollaries are.

Could someone clarify either of these points?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
I think I read it a post at a widely read physics blog, but don't recall if it was Sabine's or Lubos's or 4Gravitons or someone else's (not something for a popular readership like Discovery or Quanta or Popular Science or Science News), either in the main post or the comments, written by someone who practices in the field (the blog author). Honestly, I think it was Sabine's Backreaction blog, but I can't find the original place where I read it, which is why I asked here. It could be that I am confusing this with Poincare invariance and generalized co-variance or something like that.

Re the corollaries of Lorentz invariance, it was in the body text of an arXiv preprint that I accidentally erased the bookmark to, hence again, a question here. I also think I recall seeing it in preprints about testing for Lorentz invariance with neutrino bursts from supernovas, but again, don't have a reference at hand.

In both cases, I wish I had more specific references, but the wetware doesn't do precision citation. Maybe if I get an upgrade in my next life. ;)
 
ohwilleke said:
I think I read it a post at a widely read physics blog

Sorry, but (a) without a specific source it's impossible to comment, and (b) this wouldn't be a valid source anyway.

ohwilleke said:
Re the corollaries of Lorentz invariance, it was in the body text of an arXiv preprint that I accidentally erased the bookmark to, hence again, a question here

Sorry, but again, without a specific reference it's impossible to comment as the question is much too broad.

ohwilleke said:
I wish I had more specific references, but the wetware doesn't do precision citation

Understood, but the limits of PF discussion are what they are. I would suggest searching arxiv looking specifically for papers on tests of Lorentz invariance.