Elsevier

Physics Letters A

Volume 286, Issue 6, 13 August 2001, Pages 391-394
Physics Letters A

Observer-independent quantum of mass

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0375-9601(01)00465-0Get rights and content

Abstract

It has been observed recently by Amelino-Camelia that the hypothesis of existence of a minimal observer-independent (Planck) length scale is hard to reconcile with special relativity. As a remedy he postulated to modify special relativity by introducing an observer-independent length scale. In this Letter we set forward a proposal how one should modify the principles of special relativity, so as to assure that the value of mass scale is the same for any inertial observer. It turns out that one can achieve this by taking dispersion relations such that the speed of light goes to infinity for finite momentum (but infinite energy), proposed in the framework of the quantum κ-Poincaré symmetry. It follows that at the Planck scale the world may be non-relativistic.

Section snippets

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Giovanni Amelino-Camelia for his constant encouragement, and stimulating comments. I would never start thinking about the problems addressed in this Letter had it not for his passionate explanation of his results presented in [3], [4]. I have also benefited a lot from discussions with Jerzy Lukierski and Arek Błaut. This work was partially supported by KBN grant 5PO3B05620.

References (13)

  • C. Rovelli et al.

    Nucl. Phys.

    (1995)
  • J. Lukierski et al.

    Phys. Lett. B

    (1991)
  • S. Majid et al.

    Phys. Lett. B

    (1994)
  • J. Lukierski et al.

    Ann. Phys.

    (1995)
  • L.J. Garay

    Int. J. Theor. Phys. A

    (1995)
  • G. Amelino-Camelia
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

View full text