Dr. Manel Martínez (IFAE-BIST, Visiting Prof. of ICRR)
"On Bounds on a Possible Energy Dependence of the Speed of Light in Vacuum"
The behaviour of gravitation in the quantum regime is one of the most important pieces still missing in our understanding of the universe. Beyond the plethora of unsuccessful attempts to build a consistent theory for Quantum Gravity, intuition points to the possible existence of a quantum structure of space-time that could manifest itself as an energy dependence of the speed of light in vacuum. In this seminar the present bounds coming from time-of-flight measurements from distant astrophysical sources will be summarized and the technique used will be scrutinized. Also the impact of the recent neutron start merger event detected in both, Gravitational and Electromagnetic waves, will be commented.