# Is the highest photon energy currently possible a Planck photon or based on space-time quantinization?

It makes sense that there could be an upper limit to the frequency/energy for individual photons if the universe as we know it is quantized.

But, the highest energy photons I've heard about have a frequency between $$10^{20} \ \text{Hz}$$ to $$10^{30} \ \text{Hz}$$. A Planck photon however would have around $$10^{35} \ \text{Hz}$$. If we assume a cosmological model wherein space-time is quantized to a fundamental metric such as a Planck length, is there any reason to think the highest possible energy of a photon would be higher or lower than that?

• The energy of a photon depends on the chosen reference frame, so it is not clear what you are asking. – A.V.S. Jun 21 '19 at 5:00
• Physics is invariant of the frame of reference though, so regardless of how you are moving, a photon will appear to move at the same speed, and space-time would still be quantized. The question is fundamentally related to what we assume as true of physics, so it doesn't really matter. Pick a frame of reference you feel comfortable with and use the same frame in both the Planck result and the other theoretical limitation, unless you have an argument for why none would exist. – askmathquestions Jun 21 '19 at 5:16
• A.V.S is talking about Doppler shift. – wcc Jun 22 '19 at 14:47

Due to Lorentz invariance, the spectrum of photon energy does not cut off, but goes all the way to infinity. So, photons much higher than the Planck energy would be possible.

Update: So, the notion of quantized spacetime is of course speculative at this point. It implies that there may be different ways in which one can try to do it. However, it needs to be consistent with our current understanding, which has been tested and shown to be working. One of these requirements is Lorentz invariance. So, unless we through out Lorentz invariance, any scheme to quantize spacetime that implies a violation of Lorentz invariance would not be correct.

Considering the role of photons in mediating force among particles, one can use the tried-and-tested quantum field theory calculations. Here one finds that integrals over what effectively comes down to the photon energy need to extend to infinity. If one were to introduce a cut-off for such an integral, the cut-off scale would appear explicitly in the result. If the cut-off is the Planck scale, the contribution of the Planck scale may be so small that it would not make an observable difference in observations that we are currently able to make. However, at the same time it also shows that there is no reason to introduce such a scale in the first place to match experimental observations. By implication, the Planck scale is at present only a hypothetical scale, one that cannot at present be observed in any experiments.

As a result, it becomes rather difficult to predict what the effect of some hypothetical scheme to quantized spacetime would be at some hypothetical scale. Our current understanding does not allow arbitrary modifications to the theories, unless we suspect that something is wrong somewhere.

Not sure if this addresses your concern.

• According to very liberal classical models you can make those assumptions, but you're still ignoring the premise of the problem. Suppose there does exist a finite upper bound on photon energy. Then, as force exchanges are propagated by photon exchange of quantized energies over quantized space and time, there is also a contained upper bound on the doppler shift in a given frame. The premise of the problem is the assumption that space-time is quantized, so by default, any model in physics must also be bound by the same restriction as we cannot make observations outside of space-time. – askmathquestions Jun 22 '19 at 16:31
• Is it possible that Lorentz invariance could be violated at values of $\gamma$ not yet achieved in controlled experiments? – garyp Jun 23 '19 at 11:28
• Lorentz invariance doesn't need to be thrown out at all. All it would simply mean is that the transformations in vector space that model Lorentz invariance have to be quantized as well. These quantinizations can still be mapped asymptotically. – askmathquestions Jun 23 '19 at 17:13
• @garyp: Yes, it is possible I presume, but we would not be able to know about that unless we can actually make observation to see it. So, that means it would currently amount to mere speculations and as a result, we cannot give a definitive answer based on our current understanding. – flippiefanus Jun 23 '19 at 17:36
• @askmathquestions: well would you agree that even if the transformations are quantized in the way (assuming I understand what you mean by that), it would not allow one to limit the energy in that way, because even the quantized transformation would allow arbitrary large energies. – flippiefanus Jun 23 '19 at 17:39

There are two issues here. Physics does not set an upper limit to photon energy, although at high energy particle antiparticle pair creation will in practice be limiting. If the universe is finite, then it has a finite energy that obviously cannot be exceeded by a photon.

• current physics does not set an upper bound. What I am asking is what happens when you make the assumption that one exists. – askmathquestions Jun 23 '19 at 17:07
• Then you should edit your question. – my2cts Jun 23 '19 at 20:09
• My question explicitly states I am making the assumption. – askmathquestions Jun 23 '19 at 20:46
• You should edit your question if you want that to be clear. – my2cts Jun 23 '19 at 21:53